After the Brexit referendum, the partygate scandal, Liz Truss’s mini-Budget or any number of the brazen political acts carried out by successive Tory administrations in recent years, it’s hard to imagine that anyone believes that governments lack confidence. But that’s precisely the argument that Mariana Mazzucato, the economist and professor at University College London (UCL), makes in her new book, written with Rosie Collington, The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilises our Governments and Warps our Economies.
The book traces the rise of the consultancy industry, looking at how companies such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, PwC and Deloitte have taken over many of the crucial functions of government and, in the process, left behind an “infantilised” public realm. After decades of relying on consultants for everything from crafting policy to handling crises and streamlining functions, governments have been drained of any faith in their own ability to actually govern. And not without good reason, Mazzucato told me when I met her in her high-ceilinged office at UCL. “Along the way we’ve actually outsourced all the capacity and capability within governments to others,” she said.
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