Dear All,

Britain’s ‘pink paper’, (referred to as such because of the colour of its pages not its ideological bent), the Financial Times has a regular feature in its Saturday edition called "Lunch with the FT" in which a prominent personality is interviewed over lunch (courtesy the FT), at a restaurant/eatery of the interviewee’s choice. Over lunch, the interviewees talk about themselves and their work. The interviewer then packages all this in print along with descriptions of the food and drink they ordered and the general atmosphere of the encounter.

I continue to be surprised by both the paper and this feature because Lunch with the FT is one of the most interesting items in the UK’s weekend papers. It is a longish feature, spread over an entire broadsheet size page, across 5 columns, yet it is a compelling read: both an intelligent interview and a sort of sideways restaurant review.

Past interviewees have included the likes of ousted Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (now a regional governor in Ukraine), film director Pedro Almodovar, best-selling novelist Paulo Coelho, former Labour leadership hopeful David Milliband, youthful new MP Mhairi Black to name but a few.

A recent interviewee was the economist Mariana Mazzucato, a professor at the University of Sussex, who is one of the growing number of authoritative voices questioning the accepted notions of capitalism and private enterprise. I admit my dreadful ignorance for not having heard of Mazzucato prior to reading this piece, but I am grateful for the introduction to her ideas (these days I am intrigued by the arguments and research that challenge the private-enterprise-is-the-only-way mantra).

Mazzucato talked to the FT’s John Thornhill who observed that she "is much in demand on the international lecture circuit for her iconoclastic views about how wealth is generated and the public sector’s vital role in promoting innovation". Mazzucato is of the view that the state has an absolutely vital role to play in industry, especially in formulating direction and encouraging innovation. She describes herself as "a revolutionary who believes academics have a duty to use their expertise to challenge false political narratives". She declares that she is "determined to bust some prevailing economic ‘myths’ and change the way we think and talk about the roles of the public and private sectors in our age of austerity".

Not surprisingly this stance has not endeared her to big business. She says that she is controversial among "US venture capitalists, right wing commentators and the tech, pharmaceutical and life science industries" who she says "hate her with a vengeance". But she says she is not advocating socialism or state-run socialist monoliths; her main point is that the public sector should not be viewed as inefficient and obstructive, but as essential to the direction of any economic activity.

She insists, however, that she is not romanticising the state: "the challenge, she says, is to rebalance the relationship between the private sector, which is all too often overly financial used and parasitic, and the public sector which is frequently unimaginative and fearful".

One would think that this would just be common sense but these days the faintest whiff of ‘socialism’ can condemn any sort of project. Mazzucato’s work advocates reining in private enterprise so that its activities are in line with the state’s goals as, for example, in the case of green technology: "we no longer think governments should have missions….why should green technology be chosen by the market? Today…. Governments are not allowed to dream; and green is a dream".

And yes, truly one needs to have a dream; otherwise generating wealth becomes a compulsive activity which generates in turn narcissism and megalomania….

A thought-provoking lunch.

Best wishes