Adam Smith, one of the three main classical economists, would differ from you and how you talk about the free market. For Adam Smith, it wasn't free from the state, it was free from rent, free from rent seeking. In order to limit rent seeking in the economy, which he understood to be unearned income, so people kind of just moving things around and yet getting funds for that, you actually need it also a more smart state. And I think the question of finance today, the real question is how can we reform finance, for example, for it to have a more direct relationship with productive capacity in the real economy,.
Economist and author Mariana Mazzucato talks about her book The Value of Everything with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Mazzucato argues that economists have mismeasured value and have failed to appreciate the role of government as innovator. She argues for a more active role for government in the innovation process and for government to share in revenue proportional to its role in the creation of new technology.