The world is beginning to emerge from a devastating pandemic, and economist Mariana Mazzucato (Rome, 52 years old) is determined to convince governments and international organizations to be ambitious and go beyond a repair role for battered economies. Professor of Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL) and founding director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, dependent on the same academic institution, Mazzucato is above all a provocative, agile and brilliant mind that governments from around the world dispute as adviser and that has called into question the sacrosanct leading role of businessmen in economic growth and has vindicated the need for a strong State, yes, but reinvented.Able to design global objectives and influence the design of markets. Like John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1962, who imposed on his country the mission of sending a man to the Moon and bringing him back to Earth safe and sound, he believes that only by knowing in advance what is to be pursued will it be possible to determine how to do it in the most effective way. effective and beneficial for all. Now publish
Mission economy.
A guide to changing capitalism
(Taurus, May 20) and
Let's not waste this crisis
(Gutenberg Galaxy, May 26), a compilation of some of his latest collaborations.
'Rebuild the State', by Mariana Mazzucato
QUESTION.
An economy based on concrete missions, to turn capitalism around as we understand it.
Is that so?
ANSWER.
Most of the economic policies of governments basically consist of providing money: subsidies, loans or guarantees, in the form of support to different sectors.
They are not focused on solving problems.
We must aspire to an economic policy that is focused on concrete problems and oriented by results.
Whether it's dumping plastic waste in the oceans or ending London's stab crime wave.
P. Objective, reach the Moon.
Take risks, make mistakes, but don't change course.
R.
The idea is that, when designing an economic policy, it is oriented by a specific purpose and result.
That is why we must raise it as if it were a mission.
Going to the moon and back was a mission.
The challenge facing the United States was very broad: the Cold War, the development of Sputnik by the Soviet Union ... Today the challenges are included in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that the United Nations established in its 2030 Agenda: zero poverty , gender parity ... Each one of them can become a concrete mission, and make the whole economy work at the same time to solve the problem, the companies and the Government.
The economist Mariana Mazzucato, at the Institute for Public Innovation in London this Monday, Carmen Valiño
Q. How is this collaboration achieved?
Who coordinates it?
R.
We need a new model of the public sector. And we also need a different model of public-private collaboration. Two equally complicated tasks, because there are serious problems in both areas. Public sector institutions do not see themselves as mission-driven bodies. They have been trained, by academics or by the ministries of Economy, to act in the best of cases only when there is a failure in the markets. And it is about the economy being a joint creation. That means taking risks, investing, and proactively thinking about your goals. The internal culture of public institutions must be based much more on experimentation. And in making mistakes over and over again. Venture capital firms, or the business community in general,they boast of precisely that, of having failed over and over again to success. When public bodies fail, they immediately end up on the front page of the newspapers.
Q. The
pandemic recovery fund
agreed by the EU seems to pick up some of your ideas.
Has your design been successful?
R.
It is very good that we have a recovery plan with investment conditionality in the EU. After the financial crisis, conditionality was put on austerity. Spain cut its investment in public research by 40%, in order to reduce the deficit. Something stupid, as even the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank recognize today. You cannot, however, substitute austerity for plain investment, as some left-wing economists claim. How are we going to invest? In what frame? Are we dedicated to throwing public money from a helicopter? We need a path, a plan, a path to achieve investment-led growth. Given that recovery in the EU has been conditional on the achievement of these broad objectives, an opportunity opens up.But now it must land in each of the member states and force them to rethink the way their Public Administration works, their public sector, their capacity on the ground to seriously face these challenges.
P. You insist a lot on the need to involve citizens in this new design of the economy.
R.
That is the hardest part. That is why it is easier to involve citizens in local projects. And it is where we can learn from. Because people meet. In neighborhood associations, in the student movement. In the same way that you are part of the design of the plan, you acquire knowledge, you get involved, the project itself ends up investing in your own capacity. It is only economists, business leaders and politicians who are simply telling everyone that they are going to fight climate change. "It will be a good thing for everyone, trust us," they say. In specific areas, such as technology, it can work. But when what is intended is to define a social mission, such as combating inequality, or even climate change, participation is necessary. If not, people just ignore it and it won't change.It will resist.
Q. And is it possible to plan in the long term with governments concerned about what may happen next week?
R.
We don't just need mission-oriented policies. We need organizations oriented in that sense. Make them public, but not politicized. Take the BBC, for example. He has always had a great concept of public value internalized. They have a culture prone to taking risks. They even have a research and development department. They have developed over time a culture of experimentation that has attracted the best. It is much more difficult for a politician to tell you what to do, because it is an organization with a very defined value and purpose. It is much easier to end up trapped in a culture of nepotism or corruption when you do not have a clear vision of what the role of the state or the public sector is. It's what I'm trying to fightthat constant annihilation of public capacities. Not because I think that the State is more important than any other actor, but because I think it is the weakest.
P. But we are of weak memory.
It is already beginning to be discussed that, sooner or later, countries will have to face the huge deficits they have incurred.
R.
If we make that mistake again, it would not only be a lost opportunity but a crime.
We know that the pandemic has been much worse than it should have been.
If we had had strong public health systems, if we had paid what was due to what we call “essential workers”, the situation would have been different.
Austerity massacred that social infrastructure in many countries.
An adequate public education, an adequate public sanitation, a good public transport system… all that dies when you impose austerity.
Q.
Raise taxes
, yes or no?
A.
Of course we have to address fiscal policy.
Governments need tax revenue to build their budgets and help finance their public policies.
But it cannot be a simplistic debate.
Taxes should be used to incentivize specific behaviors.
If you have a very low corporate tax, you are incentivizing a short-term economy, with very short operations.
If you don't tax financial transactions, you stimulate earnings based solely on exchanging existing assets.
Q. And do left-wing parties understand all this?
R.
The left has become very lazy. Look at Latin America, for example, in Venezuela. In Europe we have the same problem, but at a different level. The whole discourse focuses on redistribution. There is no adequate progressive narrative that explains well where wealth comes from. I increasingly believe in the need to talk about predistribution. How we are able to create more value, in a different way, instead of waiting to pick up the scraps. All of this requires a different discourse and discussion. Of course we need progressive fiscal policy, to redistribute, but the progressive agenda needs to focus so much on wealth creation as well. If you only focus on the latter, there will be nothing to redistribute. And it's boring, too, as a message.An entrepreneur like Elon Musk, or any Silicon Valley entrepreneur, will always be much more attractive.