The Big Con
How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies
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3.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
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 Way progressives, and it thrives on the ills of modern capitalism, from financialization and privatization to the climate crisis. It is possible because of the unique power that big consultancies wield through extensive contracts and networks—as advisors, legitimators, and outsourcers—and the illusion that they are objective sources of expertise and capacity. In the end, the Big Con weakens our businesses, infantilizes our governments, and warps our economies.
In The Big Con, Mazzucato and Collington throw back the curtain on the consulting industry. They dive deep into important case studies of consultants taking the reins with disastrous results, such as the debacle of the roll out of HealthCare.gov and the tragic failures of governments to respond adequately to the COVID-19 pandemic. The result is an important and exhilarating intellectual journey into the modern economy’s beating heart. With peerless scholarship, and a wealth of original research, Mazzucato and Collington argue brilliantly for building a new system in which public and private sectors work innovatively for the common good.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Multinational consultancies, including McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group, and PwC, have co-opted government operations to suit their own business models, according to this immersive and exhaustive study by economists Mazzucato (Mission Economy) and Collington. Noting that the neoliberal "Third Way" embraced by leaders including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair held that governments should "steer more, row less," Mazzucato and Collington show how public services came to be outsourced to private firms. Consultants and contractors won governments' confidence by placing experienced public sector veterans in management roles and recruiting eager Ivy League grads to do the legwork. Dazzling PowerPoint presentations and quasi-academic in-house studies enhanced consulting firms' credibility, despite such failures as the disastrous launch of the Affordable Care Act's enrollment website, HealthCare.gov. Even more disturbing are studies suggesting that consultancies are actively working against the public interest by simultaneously serving fossil fuel companies while advising governments and corporations on their climate change policies. Among other direct and persuasive solutions, the authors suggest the enhancement of conflict of interest disclosure requirements and empowering public sector organizations "to take risks." Doggedly researched and elegantly written, this is a fascinating entry point into a critical yet underreported issue.
