The Big Con
How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies
A vital and timely investigation into the opaque and powerful consulting industry—and what to do about it
There is an entrenched relationship between the consulting industry and the way business and government are managed today that must change. Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington show that our economies’ reliance on companies such as McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY stunts innovation, obfuscates corporate and political accountability, and impedes our collective mission of halting climate breakdown.
The “Big Con” describes the confidence trick the consulting industry performs in contracts with hollowed-out and risk-averse governments and shareholder value-maximizing firms. It grew from the 1980s and 1990s in the wake of reforms by the neoliberal right and Third…
$41.00
March 7, 2023Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she directs the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Her best selling books include The Entrepreneurial State, The Value of Everything and Mission Economy. Her many prizes include the 2020 John von Neumann Award and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She is Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All and a member of the UN High Level Advisory Board for Economic and Social Affairs.
The Big Con
Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie CollingtonRosie Collington is a Ph.D. candidate at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, where she researches the political economy of outsourcing. She has written for The Guardian, OpenDemocracy, and The Independent. Her research has been published by New Political Economy and the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and she has conducted policy research for a number of organizations including Common Wealth and the British Heart Foundation, where she also previously worked within an outsourced team from Deloitte.