‘We need to get creative’

‘It was Plato who said storytellers rule the world,’ observes Mariana Mazzucato, her powerful voice tempered with a beaming smile, ‘But the stories we’re constantly told about how value is created are largely myths. We must rethink where wealth really comes from.’

An economics professor at University College London, Mazzucato is fast emerging as one of the world’s leading public intellectuals. From her high-ceilinged office in Bloomsbury, a host of grant-making bodies on speed dial, this 49-year-old Italian-American is determined to ‘replace our current parasitic system with a more sustainable, symbiotic type of capitalism’.

Mazzucato emerged from the academic shadows five years ago, when she wrote The Entrepreneurial State. The book was a cogent reminder, at a time when the public sector is much maligned, that government has played a powerful innovative role in the modern economy, creating much of the technology behind the world’s most successful companies.

‘Take Apple’s smartphone,’ says Mazzucato, picking up my device from her desk.