More advice from the Government, from a predictable source- Mariana Mazzucato.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -mazzucato
This will be the biggest peacetime tax raising Parliament ever. That's a lot of extra money for public services. This makes no impression on her at all, as far as I can tell.
Her judgment on Labour, and its lack of obvious direction, is withering. “Fine, come in, say the Tories were shit, but once you’ve said it, move on!” she cries from the sunny garden of her north London home. “You’ve got five years, so what’s your plan? What’s the positive narrative? It was always half baked … [now] it’s half assed.
As an aside, the direction seems fairly obvious to me- rebuild relations with Europe, reform regulations that inhibit growth (eg planning) and rebuild state capacity. Mazzacato nonetheless manages to undercut this "Labour are shit aren't they?" set up though. Big tax rises aren't "half assed". They're incredibly brave politics.
What's her plan?
As for paying for it? “There’s plenty of money, it’s just not directed towards anything, and government’s part of the problem.”
What does this mean? Oh.
“The reason I’m hopeful is that all of this is possible,” says Mazzucato. “[You need] a happy narrative [for the common good] that would inspire young people. Like the Artemis going to the moon – it doesn’t have to be space, but really ambitious missions make people dream. They’re all looking up at the sky.”
Or makes people say "just sort out my fucking hospital/ school/ road" perhaps. And it's unlikely this spending on elite science will be happening in Stoke.
The journo gives her a real hard time.
In her 2013 book, The Entrepreneurial State, she exploded the neoliberal myth that only the private sector can innovate, demonstrating that economic success comes as much from the public sector as from captains of industry. (To take one ironic example, the internet, ultimate power source of the libertarian tech billionaires, started out as a government project.)
In The Big Con, published in 2023, Mazzucato and co-author Rosie Collington exposed how the reliance of governments on the consultancy class “weakens our businesses, infantilises our governments and warps our economies”.
Not just argued these things. Exploded myths and exposed! Starmer might wish he had interviewers like this. Anyway, who said the public sector can't innovate?
Any more pearls of wisdom?
She speaks with passion about human self-expression and creativity – “we unfortunately talk too much to economists, too little to poets” – and gets even more excited talking about swimming and football. Her beloved Arsenal won the Premier League shortly before our interview, sparking a spontaneous gathering at the team’s north London stadium that she saw as an outpouring of community spirit. For Mazzucato, if we are to save ourselves, the place to do so will be in public places, in the fun of carnivals, in the community spaces where the common good is expressed, though not always articulated.
Why can't every part of the country have a very rich football team who win the league?
- By The Weeping Angel
- By Dalem Lake