Rethinking Capitalism

'Thought provoking and fresh - this book challenges how we think about economics.'
Gillian Tett, Financial Times

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Western capitalism is in crisis. For decades investment has been falling, living standards have stagnated or declined, and inequality has risen dramatically. Economic policy has neither reformed the financial system nor restored stable growth. Climate change meanwhile poses increasing risks to future prosperity. 

In this book some of the world's leading economists propose new ways of thinking about capitalism. In clear and compelling prose, each chapter shows how today's deep economic problems reflect the inadequacies of orthodox economic theory and the failure of policies informed by it. The chapters examine a range of contemporary economic issues, including fiscal and monetary policy, financial markets and business behaviour, inequality and privatisation, and innovation and environmental change. The authors set out alternative economic approaches which better explain how capitalism works, why it often doesn't, and how it can be made more innovative, inclusive and sustainable. Outlining a series of far-reaching policy reforms, Rethinking Capitalism offers a powerful challenge to mainstream economic debate, and new ideas to transform it.  

Michael Jacobs is Visiting Professor in the School of Public Policy at University College London.

Mariana Mazzucato is RM Phillips Professor in the Economics of Innovation at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, UK.

Further information:

Michael Jacobs is Visiting Professor in the School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science at University College London. An environmental economist and political theorist, his work has focused on the political economy of environmental change. His books include The Green Economy: Environment, Sustainable Development and the Politics of the Future (Pluto Press, 1991), Greening the Millennium? The New Politics of the Environment (ed, Blackwell, 1997), The Politics of the Real World (Earthscan 1996) and Paying for Progress: A New Politics of Tax for Public Spending (Fabian Society 2000).

Professor Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) holds the RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at SPRU in the University of Sussex. Her book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem 2013; US edition Public Affairs, 2015) was on the 2013 Books of the Year list of the Financial Times. Professor Mazzucato is winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy, the 2015 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis and in 2013 the New Republic called her one of the '3 most important thinkers about innovation'.  

She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led growth and is currently a member of the Scottish Government's Council of Economic Advisors; the World Economic Forum's Council on the Economics of Innovation; the UK Labour Party's Economic Advisory Committee and SITRA's (Finnish Innovation Fund) Advisory Panel. She is currently working on two major research projects funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme and on research commissioned by organisations including NASA, the European Space Agency and the Brazilian Ministry for Science and Technology. She is currently writing a new book, The Value of Everything, which will be published by Penguin's Allen Lane in Spring 2017.