Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington are authors of The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilises our Governments and Warps our Economies.  They launched their book with big fanfare in London, charging £30 a person to attend the live event.

Mazzucato has built up a big reputation, scanning from the left in the labour movement through to mainstream governments in Europe and Latin America for espousing the benefits of public investment and the public sector over the private.  As a result, she has been called “the world’s scariest economist”.  Her last book, Mission Impossible, called for public sector-led projects in partnership with the private sector.  This could lead to a better management of the capitalist economy (not its replacement).

Now in this new book, Mazzucato and Rosie Collington expose the scam that the management consultancy business is.  The premise of Mazzucato and Collington is that consulting is…