Speakers: Michael Jacobs and Mariana Mazzucato

Chair: Tim Jackson

4.15-5.45pm, Wednesday 15th March 2017

Richard Hoggart Building (Curzon) Cinema, Goldsmiths

Register for tickets (free)

Western capitalism is in trouble. For decades investment has been falling, living standards have stagnated or declined, and inequality has risen dramatically. Economic policy since the great crash of 2008 has neither reformed the financial system nor restored stable growth. Climate change meanwhile poses increasing risks to future prosperity.

This economic failure has now been brutally exposed in the political arena. The election of Donald Trump in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK have been widely interpreted as a revolt by those ‘left behind’ by the process of globalisation and deindustrialisation. Yet neither the political nor economic establishments appear to know how to respond.

In this joint lecture, Mariana Mazzucato and Michael Jacobs will seek to explain the causes of the current economic crisis, and suggest how we might escape it. Drawing on their new book, Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth they will show how today’s deep economic problems reflect the inadequacies of orthodox economic theory and the failure of economic policies informed by it. They will show how alternative economic approaches can better explain how capitalism works, why it often doesn’t, and how it can be made more innovative, inclusive and sustainable.

The lecture will be followed by a discussion with Tim Jackson, and audience Q&A.

This talk is part of a series of events hosted jointly with the Centre for the Understanding Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP).

*** All are welcome – register for the event here ***

For details on how to find Goldsmiths, click here.

Speaker biographies:

Michael Jacobs is Director of the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice and Visiting Professor in the School of Public Policy at University College London. An environmental economist, he was formerly a Special Adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers at the Treasury, and General Secretary of the Fabian Society. His previous books include The Green Economy: Environment, Sustainable Development and the Politics of the Future (Pluto Press, 1991), The Politics of the Real World (Earthscan 1996) and Paying for Progress: A New Politics of Tax for Public Spending (Fabian Society 2000).

Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation & Public Value, University College London (UCL) where she is establishing a new Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She is author of the highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem 2013; Public Affairs, 2015) and winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy and the 2015 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis. Mazzucato has advised policymakers around the world on how to deliver ‘smart’, inclusive and sustainable growth.  In 2013 she was named as one of the ‘3 most important thinkers about innovation‘ in the New Republic.

Professor Tim Jackson is Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). Funded over five years by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), CUSP aims to explore the moral, social, political and economic dimensions of prosperity on a finite planet. Between 2004 and 2011, Tim was Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission, where his work culminated in the publication of his controversial book Prosperity without Growth (Routledge 2009/2017). In 2016, he was awarded the Hillary Laureate for exceptional international leadership. In addition to his academic work, Tim is an award-winning dramatist.