The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy - Paperback

by Mariana Mazzucato (Author)

The award-winning author of The Entrepreneurial State and Mission Economy offers a scathing indictment of a global financial system that incentivizes taking over making and extraction over creation

"A stimulating analysis of the underlying causes of inequality and growth which forces us to confront long-held beliefs about how economies work and who benefits." --Martin Wolf, Financial Times

The Value of Everything is a penetrating and passionate argument that modern capitalism has failed to clearly delineate between value creation and value extraction. As economist Mariana Mazzucato shows, from Silicon Valley to Wall Street and beyond, foggy notions of value create confusion between rents and profits, reward extractors rather than creators, and distort the measurements of growth and GDP. Asset management companies profit exorbitantly off of income generated elsewhere; big pharma uses value-based pricing to justify astronomically high prices for vital medicines that are publicly funded. In the process, innovation suffers and inequality widens.

The Value of Everything reignites the debate over how we measure value in our society--and in so doing, shows how we can shape our economy to be more innovative and inclusive.

Author Biography

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD, CBE, FREcon) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy's highest civilian honour; the 2020 John von Neumann Award; the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values; and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She is a member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the Italian Academy of Sciences Lincei. In 2025, she was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for services to economics in the King's Birthday Honours List. Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Academy for Life for bringing "more humanity" to the world.

Her award-winning books include: The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (2013), Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (2021), and The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023). She advises policymakers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her policy roles include: Chair of the World Health Organization's Council on the Economics of Health for All, Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, member of the South African President's Economic Advisory Council, Co-Chair of the Group of Experts to the Brazilian 2024 G20 Task Force for the Global Mobilization against Climate Change, and Special Representative of President Ramaphosa to the 2025 G20 Taskforce 1 on Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialization, Employment, and Reduced Inequality.