Mariana Mazzucato, economist: ‘Housing is a human right and the foundation for everything else’

The economist Mariana Mazzucato believes in getting out into the field, rolling up her sleeves and seeing how her ideas are put into practice to improve people’s lives. She has just returned from Brazil and Mexico after several weeks working with local communities. She welcomes EL PAÍS into her London home, in the Camden neighborhood, with an energy that seems remarkable for someone who should still be battling jet lag.

Progressive governments, both local and national, regularly seek her advice. She champions the idea of an entrepreneurial state, capable of setting the pace of the economy in partnership with the private sector. Rather than pursuing growth as an end in itself, she advocates defining clear long-term missions and objectives first, with economic growth emerging as a byproduct. In short, as she argues in her latest book, The Common Good Economy: A New Compass, the goal is to build a good way of living. Together with Spain’s economy minister, Carlos Cuerpo, she has promoted the creation of a Global Council for a Common Good Economy.

Question. You have likely followed the public outcry and debate sparked in Spain by the eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman whose removal from her home became a flashpoint in the country’s housing crisis and reignited arguments over affordable housing. If there is such a thing as a common good, surely affordable housing must be one of them, mustn’t it?

Answer. Yes, housing should be a common good, but we need to go beyond the goal of merely making it “affordable.” It is a human right and the foundation for everything else. Today, the system favors investors and property developers first. A “common-good” approach would put people, the planet, and everyone’s right to remain in their community at the center.

Q. And so far, have progressive governments come up with an adequate response?

A. We need short-term welfare solutions so that no one lives in precarious conditions. But rather than tackling problems after they arise, governments need to shape the housing market in advance. Impose conditions on developers, curb speculators and build a social housing sector large enough to set construction terms, as Vienna has done.

Q. You began by talking about the entrepreneurial state, and then about an economy built around specific missions. Your latest book is almost an instruction manual for putting those ideas into practice.

A. Yes, we have approached these problems the wrong way. We think the role of the state is to plug holes created by the private sector. That’s why we keep hearing there is a global $7 trillion shortfall to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. It’s ridiculous to keep thinking like that. Let’s move from public goods, which we merely try to correct, to the common good, which is an objective where what matters is how capital, labor, the public and private sectors, the state and citizens relate to each other. It’s about inserting that common good ex ante. Let’s talk more about predistribution, not redistribution.

Q. And you say that citizens should take a more active part in this new economy.

A. The community should decide which missions to pursue. But not because I believe decision-making should be purely bottom-up. An active government is still necessary. Citizens must be part of the design: many people have been left behind; they are angry, and that fuels populist politicians. There is distrust of governments. The best way to fight it is to work with communities — listen to them and bring to the table voices with experience in fields such as housing, transport and food policy.

Q. Your proposals require long-term planning and development. Isn’t there a risk that they will fail in a society that is increasingly polarized and driven by immediate impulses, by what people read on social media?

A. On the contrary. People are impatient. Let’s drop the rhetoric. We must ensure that every child in London, Barcelona and Mexico City has access to healthcare and a healthy, tasty lunch. It’s not that complicated. We need to wake up and make clear that the funding for those lunches, for example, must be approved now, not set as a 2030 or 2050 target. No one talked about 2050 targets during the pandemic. We used wartime instruments then. Why don’t we do it now? Because no one cares about those targets, even though we know how to solve them.

Q. We live in uncertain times. Is that an economic opportunity or risk?

A. We are in the most geopolitically problematic situation since the 1960s, but the Cold War kept everything stable. Back then, we began investing in health and education and less in defense. Now we have chosen to increase defense spending, and although no one says it aloud, it is at the expense of other needs. We are returning to austerity, which is foolish. If you stop investing in health or education, the state will later have to fix the damage.

Q. How can your ideas about the common good be applied to the urgent push to increase defense spending?

A. If we have no choice, at least let’s learn how to do it right. If you only finance a bomb or a tank, you do not stimulate innovation. Rather than focusing on defense, let’s think about resilience, sovereignty and security. And let’s bring water, energy and health security into the conversation. Redefine security and stimulate innovation and growth.

Q. We have lost sight in the current debate that migration has an economic dimension and an economic solution…

A. We must respond to why people migrate. Their economies are struggling, and that has a lot to do with how we have interacted with those countries. If we have measures such as a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism that excludes products that don’t meet carbon criteria, we are harming African countries that have not made the necessary investments. Let’s help them with knowledge-transfer agreements and investments.

Q. There is a great deal of pessimism about the unraveling of the international order. Are we heading into an era without order?

A. We need to forge coalitions among countries that share similar values. Spain, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa are progressive countries. What does it mean to be progressive? To believe in progress, not in turning back, which would mean closing borders. Or to oppose a tax system that shifts money from the poor to the rich. More predistribution than redistribution. Countries that believe in this should work together.

Q. Amid the growing concern about AI, you have criticized its creators...

A. I refuse to call them tech bros. They are simply bros — that is, mafiosos. All the technology they use was developed by governments. They merely rode that wave without paying taxes. They abuse labor on a global scale. The history of AI and many large language models has been built on effort in Africa that borders on slavery. And they are being overfunded. I think China, at least, is thinking in a more strategic way. Its DeepSeek model uses less carbon and water, something worth noting.

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