What it is
Published in 2021, Mazzucato uses the Apollo moon landing as a model for how governments can organize around bold missions. She argues that the climate crisis requires the same scale of ambition, public investment, and cross-sector coordination that put humans on the moon, applied to decarbonization and social equity.
Why we picked this
This book provides the intellectual framework behind the EU Green Deal, the US Inflation Reduction Act, and other mission-oriented climate policies. Mazzucato's influence on actual policy makes this more than theory: governments are implementing her ideas.
Key takeaways
- The Apollo program spent $283 billion (2020 dollars) over a decade and generated innovations in materials, computing, and engineering that drove economic growth for generations.
- Mazzucato identifies five criteria for effective missions: bold, measurable, time-bound, cross-sectoral, and inspiring to bottom-up experimentation.
- Her framework directly influenced the design of the EU's Horizon Europe research program, which allocates over 95 billion euros to mission-oriented R&D including climate and digital transitions.