6 minute read
Review
By Henry Friesen
The Value of Everything: Who Makes and Who Takes from the
Real Economy by Mariana Mazzucato (PublicAffairs, 2018 368 pp, $28 US, $36.50 Canadian)
If you believe the world’s economies are working just like they should, don’t bother reading this book. If it’s never troubled you that the chief executive officers of the Fortune 500, (the five hundred most profitable US industrial corporations), earn more than 300 times the average worker’s wage, or that the estimated wealth of the world’s 62 richest people in 2015 was equal to that of the bottom 3.5 billion, this book will just annoy you. But the book is a mustread if you’ve been concerned by the inequities in mature economies that seem to grow unchecked.
The Value of Everything will rekindle a much-needed debate about the kind of world we really want to live in. The author argues that we must re-visit the basics. She dissects the status quo and challenges how our society matches risks and rewards.
What is value — and who creates it? How can we avoid rewarding activities that merely shift value around, or worse, actually destroy it?
Is value merely the price for something? Or is it time to consider value first, and price second? Most of us have unwittingly accepted the dominant narrative that price dictates value. In Mazzucato’s view, many problems in our economy are a result of our inability to distinguish among activities that create, redistribute and destroy value.
The author, a professor at University College London, backs up her challenge to the status quo with many current examples. The financial sector, big pharma, and leading technology firms are some of the newsmakers she uses to expose the weaknesses in the way our world runs.
She is alarmed with the shortterm focus of most investors and the managers in charge of their investments. She predicts that unless the
players in our society, including governments, work together to make it more attractive to invest for the long term, rather than chasing profits with millisecond trading, the next financial crisis, or worse, is inevitable.
Books that challenge the status quo often leave me wanting more practical advice. The Value of Everything addresses societal and economic issues at a macro level, but there was little information for what individuals can do to help reframe how value is defined in our society.
As a follower of Jesus, I couldn’t help wondering whether being a Christian makes a difference. Do our actions testify to our belief that God owns everything, that value has an eternal dimension? As you read the book, I encourage you to consider your own business and investment values.
The Value of Everything concludes the way it began, as an attempt to “open the dialogue by showing that the creation of value is collective.” Mazzucato believes that criticism is “a necessary preliminary to the creation of a new economics: an economics of hope. After all, if we cannot dream of a better future and try to make it happen, there is no reason why we should care about value. And this perhaps is the greatest lesson of all.”
I highly recommend the book. It scratched where I itched. ◆
Henry Friesen is a chartered accountant who lives in Niverville, Manitoba, south of Winnipeg. He cites the $600,000 earned over the past year by the board of a bankrupt Canadian retailer, while pensioners see their benefits slashed, as evidence of the accuracy of Mazzucato’s critique.
Convention will focus on roads to enduring livelihoods
Intersections, Roads to Enduring Livelihoods is the theme of MEDA’s annual Business as a Calling convention, to be held Nov. 8-11 at the JW Marriott Hotel, in Indianapolis, Ind.
Greg Brenneman, a corporate turnaround expert who is executive chairman of private equity firm CCMP Capital and author of the book Right Away & All at Once (see excerpt, pp. 8-9), will provide the opening plenary address on Thursday evening.
Brenneman’s career has included stints as chief executive officer of Continental Airlines, Burger King, PwC Consulting, and sandwich chain Quizno Sub.
Friday’s lunch panel will explore intersections between small-scale farmers in North America and in develop- ing regions. The session will feature: • Lali Hess of the Juniper Spoon, a full-service catering firm serving central Indiana. Juniper Spoon grows some of its own food and purchases most of its ingredients locally. • MEDA board member Marianne Unruh. Her company, Fresh Solutions, provides on-the-ground buying services to retailers and food service vendors in several US states. • Rose Mutuku, the founder of Smart Logistics Solutions, a Kenyan firm that partners with MEDA’s MSAWA (equitable prosperity) project. Since her 2009 start-up, she has expanded to work with 5,000 farmers. Smart Logistics sells large volumes of cereals and legumes to large firms and processes legumes, packaged for retail, targeting households of modest means.
• Sarah William Kessy, managing director of Halisi Products (see photos, pg. 14), a Tanzanian food processing company. Halisi is a lead firm that partners with MEDA’s Supporting Small Business Value Chains (SSBVC) project in Tanzania. Halisi manufactures food products by sourcing raw materials from farmer suppliers in three main categories: cereals, legumes and bee products. It currently partners with 1,000 smallscale Tanzanian farmers.
Saturday evening’s program will celebrate Allan Sauder’s 31 years of service with MEDA. Sauder, MEDA’s longest-serving president, will retire at the end of 2018. He joined MEDA as a field project manager in 1987, later working as director of international operations (see story, pp. 6-7).
Shannon Dycus, co-pastor of First Mennonite Church in Indianapolis, will present the Sunday morning message. She will speak on the theme “Intersections: Her Touch, Our Faith and the Power of Jesus.”
Dycus is active with Faith in Indiana, a network of faith communities seeking justice and holds multiple leadership positions with Mennonite Church USA.
The convention will also include MEDAx, a conference for young professionals under the age of 40. The MEDAx track will include a panel discussion of business professionals and social justice activists and a competition where social entrepreneurs and community innovators can pitch their business to a panel of judges for a chance to win $5,000. David Richert of Richert Racing will take part in a Thursday tour to the Indianapolis Speedway, Friday seminars and the MEDAx kick-off event. Richert, who has spent the last few seasons racing on circuits through Europe, including the Monaco Grand Prix Formula 1 race, will talk about how racing, business and faith intersect in his career.
A range of seminars will allow attendees to hear about MEDA’s projects and philosophy, business, faith and philanthropy.
Among them: • Creating business solutions to poverty in an age of climate change • Gender equality and business — how women enhance business growth and impact • Youth for growth: transforming economies through agriculture • Thoughts on excellence in philanthropy • Which is easier: cross-cultural connections in business or the church? • Stories from the field, by MEDA staffers • From driving tractors on the prairie to driving cars in Monaco • How MEDA’s EMERTA project is touching Ethiopian lives • Lead firms: leading small entrepreneurs to prosperity • At the crossroads of culture ◆
