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Politics

Mission-Driven Localities

Jul 22, 2021 Mariana Mazzucato and Georgia Gould

In addition to exposing and exacerbating longstanding inequalities, the COVID-19 pandemic has also given rise to a wealth of promising local-level initiatives. Though it is not unique, the London borough of Camden has emerged as an inspiration for other communities in the United Kingdom and around the world.

LONDON – “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody,” the American urbanist Jane Jacobs once observed, “only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

Today, we need to apply that snippet of wisdom to post-COVID-19 policymaking. If recovery from the pandemic is not felt in the places where people live their lives, it will not be a success, and will not tackle the fundamental inequalities and injustices that sit at the heart of this crisis.

To achieve the true economic and social renewal that we so desperately need, central governments must do more to empower citizens, communities, and local governments.

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Mariana Mazzucato

Writing for PS since 2015
53 Commentaries

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health For All, and a co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. She is the author of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (Penguin Books, 2019), The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (Penguin Books, 2018), Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (Penguin Books, 2022), and, most recently, The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (Penguin Press, 2023).

Georgia Gould

1 Commentary

Georgia Gould is Leader of the Camden London Borough Council and Chair of the London Councils.

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alex Finch Jul 25, 2021

Empowering local government is a huge mistake. It’s conducive to corruption and cronyism. This is what happens when Socialism takes control, as was the case in Austria in the 70s and 80s, policies once established, now almost impossible to reverse. In Austria today almost every small town has a mayor, in fact there’s over 2000 in a small country of just 9M. The mayor of a town of 9.000 inhabitants earns about €100.000 per year, has a lot of power and gets a fabulous pension. But that’s not all. He has a council with several departments, each with numerous staff, some also earning €100.000 (and hardly ever at work), all get fabulous pensions. There is a building department, even if the population of the town has actually fallen in the last 20 years, and the only construction in that time was state government subsidized housing. There is a department for garbage collection, even though that’s all done on a state level. The mayors with the most political clout pull in the most funding for their town (that’s fair….?). The mayor of one small town of just 6.000, managed to „invest“ over €20-Million in projects that even the locals now describe as disasters. He then donated a large hotel and restaurant own by the council, to the lessee, who subsequently sold it and pocketed the money. Who pays for all this? The taxpayers. And in a small town, no one wants to confront the mayor, it’s like taking on the Godfather.
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Tad Furtado Jul 25, 2021

More local action and spending would be fantastic, but it can’t simply be additive. It must be netted out from taxing and spending done at the national or other large scale level. Otherwise we keep ratcheting up what is taken from people in alternating turns and justifications.
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