Top 80 Geoff Mulgan Quotes
#1. 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
#2. It's an irony that growing inequality could mean more money for philanthropy. In the U.S., quite a few of the ultra-rich have taken to heart the 19th century industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie's comment that it's a disgrace to die wealthy.
Geoff Mulgan
#3. Societies can easily talk themselves into conflict and misery. But they can also talk, and act, their way out.
Geoff Mulgan
#4. I can think of nothing worse than a think-tank where everybody agreed.
Geoff Mulgan
#5. The City of London has never been known for understanding technology and has never matched Silicon Valley's tradition of knowledgeable investment in technology start-ups, just as the U.K. government has never matched the vast investment made by the U.S. government.
Geoff Mulgan
#6. As a civil servant in charge of the government's Strategy Unit, I brought in many people from outside government, including academia and science, to work in the unit, dissecting and solving complex problems from GM crops to alcohol, nuclear proliferation to schools reform.
Geoff Mulgan
#7. All of nationalism can be understood as a kind of collective narcissism.
Geoff Mulgan
#8. A tablet replacing an exercise book is not innovation, it's just a different way to make notes.
Geoff Mulgan
#9. 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
#11. All real capitalisms are impure hybrids, mongrels mixed with other strains.
Geoff Mulgan
#12. The most important innovators often don't need any technologies - just imagination and acute sensitivity to people's needs.
Geoff Mulgan
#13. 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
#14. 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
#15. It matters more how governments behave than how big they are.
Geoff Mulgan
#16. Deeper fulfilment is rather different from the happiness of seeing a good film or watching your team win at football, and it doesn't come at the push of a button.
Geoff Mulgan
#17. The classic think-tank is supposed to be sitting in an attic thinking up grand ideas.
Geoff Mulgan
#18. I have a lot of admiration for people willing to face the public, but I'd prefer not to.
Geoff Mulgan
#19. L'Oreal's slogan 'because you're worth it' has come to epitomise banal narcissism of early 21st century capitalism; easy indulgence and effortless self-love all available at a flick of the credit card.
Geoff Mulgan
#20. Democratic nation states remain far more capable of managing the circuit of coercion, taxation and legitimation than any transnational bodies.
Geoff Mulgan
#21. Societies advance through innovation every bit as much as economies do.
Geoff Mulgan
#22. Learning isn't something you should only do solo.
Geoff Mulgan
#23. A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.
Geoff Mulgan
#24. 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
#25. 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
#26. Economies are complex beasts that need people to do an extraordinary range of tasks.
Geoff Mulgan
#27. 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
#28. The most dynamic cities have always been immersed in the critical innovations of their time.
Geoff Mulgan
#29. People don't want charities to usurp the state as the core provider of social services.
Geoff Mulgan
#30. There are hardly any apprenticeships in care; hardly any schools preparing teenagers for jobs in care; and few signs that politicians know what to do to raise the status and rewards for what will soon be one of our most important industries.
Geoff Mulgan
#31. Health is already a dominant sector in most societies and the one most guaranteed to grow.
Geoff Mulgan
#32. Bangalore has become a centre for healthcare.
Geoff Mulgan
#33. Predation is part of the everyday life of capitalism, in sectors as mainstream as pharmaceuticals, software and oil - where people's money, their data, their time and their attention are routinely taken in fundamentally asymmetrical exchanges.
Geoff Mulgan
#34. Governments should want and even crave the best possible scientific advice. With reliable knowledge come better decisions, fewer mistakes and more results achieved for each pound spent.
Geoff Mulgan
#35. Governments that invest billions in new hardware still find it hard to accept that they might benefit just as much from systematic innovation in such things as child development or cutting crime.
Geoff Mulgan
#36. Lots of creativity is and should be solitary.
Geoff Mulgan
#37. The idea of entrepreneurship applies as much in politics, religion, society and the arts as it does in business.
Geoff Mulgan
#38. Even many of the teenagers who feel confident on navigating the web simply don't have the skills needed to 'write and create' digital tools, not simply consume them.
Geoff Mulgan
#39. Recycling is an area where jobs could be created at low cost. Green collar workers. That's not very sexy.
Geoff Mulgan
#40. With a fractured sense of self, we come to depend on what people feed back to us - often mediated through social networks - not what we are. We have complex identities but may become less able to act as a subject - confident in what we really are.
Geoff Mulgan
#41. Many people leave government disillusioned about its ability to achieve change and cynical about politicians. I left with rather opposite lessons.
Geoff Mulgan
#42. Most governments do have inbuilt biases in favour of the rich and powerful, and most do contain plenty of manipulators who love intrigue, who have lost whatever moral compass they may once have had and who protect themselves with steely cynicism.
Geoff Mulgan
#43. The smug complacency of technology adverts disguises a pretty mixed picture, with too many people not connected, too many passive users of technologies designed for interactive, and far too much talk about empowerment but far too little action to make it happen.
Geoff Mulgan
#44. As with products on supermarket shelves, the public has a right to know where their financial products and services come from.
Geoff Mulgan
#45. The longer you commute the less happy you're likely to be.
Geoff Mulgan
#46. Computing should be taught as a rigorous - but fun - discipline covering topics like programming, database structures, and algorithms. That doesn't have to be boring.
Geoff Mulgan
#47. Teenagers learn best by doing things, they learn best in teams and they learn best by doing things for real - all the opposite of what mainstream schooling actually does.
Geoff Mulgan
#48. The end of life is likely to be an important focus for innovation. Most people die in hospitals, tied up with tubes and with their bodies pumped full of drugs. Yet most would rather die at home and with more control over the timing and manner of their death.
Geoff Mulgan
#49. The responsibility for good government lies not just with governments themselves but also with every other part of the system they operate in, including media, non-governmental organisations and the public.
Geoff Mulgan
#50. Conflicts are never caused in any simple way by identity, culture or economics. Where resources are scarce, or there are strong historical memories of conflict, small events are more likely to inflame passions.
Geoff Mulgan
#51. Capitalism is not so much an aberration as a step on an evolutionary path, and one that contains within it some of the answers to its own contradictions.
Geoff Mulgan
#52. 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
#53. As the Internet of things advances, the very notion of a clear dividing line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred, sometimes in creative ways.
Geoff Mulgan
#54. Everyone knows of great projects that were too dependent on a charismatic individual, or simply too expensive to be replicated.
Geoff Mulgan
#55. Young people who were relaxed about posting every detail of their life on Facebook become a lot less relaxed when they realise just how transparent their life has become to future employers.
Geoff Mulgan
#56. Huge sums are invested globally in medical research and development - and with good reason.
Geoff Mulgan
#57. Systems governed by only one set of rules are more vulnerable than those with variety.
Geoff Mulgan
#58. The market turns out to be just one special case of collective decision-making.
Geoff Mulgan
#59. Democracy isn't solely about polite conversations in parliaments. It needs to be continually refreshed with raw passions, anger and ideals.
Geoff Mulgan
#60. A modest dose of self-love is entirely healthy - who would want to live in a world where everyone hated themselves? But taken too far, it soon becomes poisonous.
Geoff Mulgan
#61. Radicalism is as British as tea and cakes, as much a part of our make-up as monarchy and football. It will never have its own jubilees, palaces or honours system.
Geoff Mulgan
#62. Britain is rich in radicalism, and anyone who says that our society has drifted into fatalism and apathy should get out more.
Geoff Mulgan
#63. 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
#64. Cities simply don't have the powers they need to radically innovate in cutting obesity or the number of disaffected teenagers.
Geoff Mulgan
#65. Vigorous independent and critical media are indispensable in a democracy.
Geoff Mulgan
#66. Understanding capitalism is in some ways simple. At its best, capitalism rewards creators, makers and providers: the people and firms that create valuable things for others, like imaginative technologies and good food, cars and drugs.
Geoff Mulgan
#67. There is incredible potential for digital technology in and beyond the classroom, but it is vital to rethink how learning is organised if we are to reap the rewards.
Geoff Mulgan
#68. Social innovation thrives on collaboration; on doing things with others, rather than just to them or for them: hence the great interest in new ways of using the web to 'crowdsource' ideas, or the many experiments involving users in designing services.
Geoff Mulgan
#69. 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
#70. States which used to communicate directly to their citizens now do so through the media, where their messages are reshaped by the logics of news values and commentary.
Geoff Mulgan
#71. Immigration isn't always good for the economy or jobs.
Geoff Mulgan
#72. Local government in England is simply too big. Our lowest tier serves an average population of 118,500, while in the U.S. and across continental Europe the figures are more like several thousand.
Geoff Mulgan
#73. Before the Second World War, L'Oreal in France was an active supporter of the French fascists. The cosmetic group's founder Eugene Schueller was an active member of the 'Cagoule' group, committed to the violent overthrow of the Third Republic, and hosted meetings at Oreal headquarters.
Geoff Mulgan
#74. Freecycle groups match people who have things they want to get rid of with people who can use them.
Geoff Mulgan
#75. In Britain, polls show large majorities in favour of mansion taxes and higher taxes on the finance sector.
Geoff Mulgan
#76. All innovation is about letting go, saying goodbye to things to create space for the new.
Geoff Mulgan
#77. Courses can, and should, incorporate the excitement and fun of programming games, apps or even real digital devices.
Geoff Mulgan
#78. Many of the greatest composers and musicians do their best work in extreme confinement but we are seeing it in other fields - uses of technology to link people together in networks to solve problems and almost certainly we'll get better ideas than we would from them just doing it on their own.
Geoff Mulgan
#79. One effect of an individualistic culture that's poor at instilling mutual respect is that people jump more quickly to anger or violence.
Geoff Mulgan
#80. Adelaide is becoming a hub for higher education.
Geoff Mulgan
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