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Economies are complex beasts that need people to do an extraordinary range of tasks.

Geoff Mulgan

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Geoff Mulgan
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: January 1
Economist
Writer
Tasks
Extraordinary
Economy
Economies
Need
Beasts
Needs
Beast
People
Complexes
Complex
Range

More quotes by Geoff Mulgan

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I didn't much like being in Parliament physically. I found it a bit depressing. It's very dark and heavy. I like being out and about.
Geoff Mulgan
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So is civil society prepared for the future? Probably not. Most organisations have to live hand to mouth, juggling short-term funding and perpetual minor crises. Even the bigger ones rarely get much time to stand back and look at the bigger picture. Many are on a treadmill chasing after contracts and new funding.
Geoff Mulgan
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I'm not saying [economic] growth is wrong, but throughout the years of growth, many things didn't get better. ... If you look at America, the proportion of Americans with no one to talk to about important things went up from a tenth to a quarter.
Geoff Mulgan
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All over the world, social innovation is tackling some of the most pressing problems facing society today - from fair trade, distance learning, hospices, urban farming and waste reduction to restorative justice and zero-carbon housing. But most of these are growing despite, not because of, help from governments.
Geoff Mulgan
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There is a yearning for people to return to elementary moral virtues, such as integrity and commitment. We distrust people who have no centering of values. We greatly respect businessmen, for example, if they display those virtues, even if we don't necessarily agree with the people.
Geoff Mulgan
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By international standards, many of the U.K.'s policies for civil society are exemplary. However, there are concerns about constraints on civil liberties - particularly restrictions on free assembly and about the rising tide of everyday regulation has seriously impeded community activity - from organising street parties to helping children.
Geoff Mulgan
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The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices.
Geoff Mulgan
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Big business increasingly likes to portray itself as socially concerned, adopting the style of civic action through 'campaigns' of varying degrees of cynicism.
Geoff Mulgan
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Advisers who think that they are very clever while all around them are a bit thick, and that all the problems of the world would be solved if the thick listened to the clever, are liable to be disappointed.
Geoff Mulgan
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In every capitalist economy there are anti-capitalist movements, activists, and even political parties in a way, that there are no longer anti-democratic movements, activists, and parties.
Geoff Mulgan
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A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.
Geoff Mulgan
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The once-science-fiction notion of hyper-connectivity - where we are all constantly connected to social networks and other bubbling streams of digital data - has rapidly become a widespread reality.
Geoff Mulgan
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Spreading an idea is hard work.
Geoff Mulgan
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The most important innovators often don't need any technologies - just imagination and acute sensitivity to people's needs.
Geoff Mulgan
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Cities simply don't have the powers they need to radically innovate in cutting obesity or the number of disaffected teenagers.
Geoff Mulgan
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All innovation is about letting go, saying goodbye to things to create space for the new.
Geoff Mulgan
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The central position of finance capital is going to come to an end, and it's going to steadily move to the sides, the margins of our society, transformed from being a master into a servant, a servant to the productive economy and of human needs.
Geoff Mulgan
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The wrongful arrest of tens of thousands of British Muslims after the September 11 attacks can be explained by the very poor intelligence the police had, and, just possibly, excused by the fact that a terrorist action in Britain linked to British Muslims would have been hugely damaging.
Geoff Mulgan
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All real capitalisms are impure hybrids, mongrels mixed with other strains.
Geoff Mulgan
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The longer you commute the less happy you're likely to be.
Geoff Mulgan