Quotes by Geoff Mulgan

About Geoff Mulgan:

Geoff Mulgan is Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and Visiting Professor at University College London, the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne. Previously he was:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

The classic think-tank is supposed to be sitting in an attic thinking up grand ideas.

Geoff Mulgan

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

Societies can easily talk themselves into conflict and misery. But they can also talk, and act, their way out.

Geoff Mulgan

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

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

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

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

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 prolifera...

Geoff Mulgan

Europe has shown how government can be organised in a network. Its institutions both compete and co-operate and include a directly elected parliament that does not appoint the executive, independent judiciaries and a complex set of relationships betw...

Geoff Mulgan

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...

Geoff Mulgan

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

A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.

Geoff Mulgan

The most dynamic cities have always been immersed in the critical innovations of their time.

Geoff Mulgan

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 wealt...

Geoff Mulgan

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 n...

Geoff Mulgan

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 ha...

Geoff Mulgan

Britain is rich in radicalism, and anyone who says that our society has drifted into fatalism and apathy should get out more.

Geoff Mulgan

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 mak...

Geoff Mulgan

Spreading an idea is hard work.

Geoff Mulgan

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 ho...

Geoff Mulgan

Author Bio

  • NameGeoff Mulgan
  • DescriptionBritish political advisor
  • Born1961
  • AwardsCommander Of The Order Of The British Empire