If you’ve spent any time in a corporate boardroom lately, you’ve probably noticed something weird. There are always these incredibly well-dressed, very young, and very expensive people hovering in the corners. They’re from McKinsey, BCG, or Bain. They have spreadsheets that look like works of art. But if you look at the actual state of the global economy, something isn't adding up. Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington decided to pull the curtain back on this in their book, The Big Con. Honestly, it's about time someone did.
It’s a massive industry. We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. But the book argues that this isn't just about overpaid twenty-somethings. It’s about a fundamental hollow-out of our public and private institutions.
Think about it.
When a government or a massive corporation stops knowing how to do its own work, it loses its "dynamic capability." That’s a fancy way of saying they get stupid. They forget how to learn. They forget how to lead. They just become shells that pay for advice they should already have.
The Big Con and the Myth of Efficiency
The central premise of The Big Con is that the consulting industry has created a self-fulfilling prophecy. They tell organizations they aren't efficient enough. Then, they swoop in to "fix" things. But the "fix" usually involves outsourcing more work to—you guessed it—more consultants. It’s a loop.
Mazzucato and Collington aren't just complaining about high fees. They are looking at the structural rot. They point out that in the mid-20th century, governments actually did things. NASA put a man on the moon with internal talent. Now? Governments are basically just contract managers. When the UK government needed to handle the COVID-19 "test and trace" system, they didn't look at their own scientists. They handed billions to Deloitte.
The results? Most people would agree they were pretty disastrous.
The authors argue this isn't an accident. It’s the business model. If a consultant actually solved your problem forever, they wouldn't have a job next year. So, the goal is to make the client dependent. It’s like a doctor who gives you medicine that only treats the symptoms so you have to keep coming back for more prescriptions. Except the medicine costs $5,000 an hour.
Why We Fall For It
You might wonder why smart CEOs and heads of state keep falling for this. It’s usually about "de-risking."
If a CEO makes a huge, risky decision and it fails, they get fired. If a CEO hires McKinsey to tell them to make that same decision and it fails, they can say, "Hey, I hired the best in the world, what more could I do?" It’s a shield. A very expensive, glossy, PowerPoint-shaped shield.
- It provides political cover.
- It creates a veneer of "objective" expertise.
- It allows leaders to avoid taking personal responsibility for layoffs or unpopular pivots.
How the Consulting Industry Captured the State
This is where the book gets really gritty. It tracks the way the "Big Four" accounting firms and the "Big Three" management consultancies have basically embedded themselves into the DNA of the modern state.
Take the climate crisis. Every big firm now has a "Sustainability" wing. They are advising fossil fuel companies on how to look green while simultaneously advising governments on how to write climate regulations. It’s a massive conflict of interest. But because they are "private" and "independent," we just let it slide.
Rosie Collington and Mariana Mazzucato highlight how this "consultocracy" erodes democracy. When the people making the big decisions aren't elected and aren't even permanent employees of the state, who are they accountable to? Not the voters. They are accountable to their partners and their profit margins.
The Cost of Losing "Internal Brainpower"
When you stop doing the work, you stop understanding the work.
In the tech world, they call this "brain drain," but in The Big Con, it’s described as a systemic amputation. If a government department outsources its IT, its policy-making, and its HR, what is left? Just a few people in an office signing checks.
This leads to "infantilization." The organization becomes like a child that can't tie its own shoes. It has to ask a consultant which shoes to buy and then ask them how to tie the laces. And the consultant charges for the shoe advice, the lace advice, and a follow-up "footwear optimization" audit.
Breaking the Cycle of The Big Con
The book isn't just a 300-page rant. It’s a call for a massive rethink of how we value expertise. We’ve been told for decades that the "private sector is more efficient." The Big Con argues that’s a lie—or at least a half-truth that has been weaponized.
The private sector is often just "more expensive" because it adds a layer of profit onto basic services.
If we want to fix this, we have to start valuing internal expertise again. We have to be okay with organizations making mistakes while they learn. Innovation isn't something you can buy off a shelf from a guy in a slim-fit suit who graduated from Harvard three months ago. Innovation comes from doing the hard, messy work over a long period.
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Real-World Implications
Look at what happened with the consultancy scandals in Australia recently. PwC was caught using confidential government tax information—that they got while advising the government—to help their private clients dodge those very same taxes. That’s not "efficiency." That’s a heist.
This is the "con" in action. It’s the blurring of lines until the public interest and the private profit motive are indistinguishable.
Actionable Steps to Escape the Consulting Trap
If you’re running a business or working in a department that feels like it’s being eaten alive by outside "experts," there are ways out. It's not easy, because the consultants are very good at making themselves feel indispensable.
Invest in your own people first. It sounds cliché, but it’s the only way. If you have a problem, ask the people on the front lines before you call a firm. They usually know the answer; they just haven't been given the permission to speak up or the time to implement it.
Audit your "knowledge leak." Look at every contract you have with an outside firm. Are they teaching your staff how to do the job, or are they keeping the "secret sauce" to themselves? If they aren't transferring knowledge, they are draining your value.
Redefine what "value" looks like. Stop measuring success by how many "best practices" you’ve implemented. Measure it by how much your internal team has grown in capability over the last year.
Limit the scope of engagements. Never sign an open-ended "transformation" contract. Those are just black holes for money. Keep it tight. Keep it specific. And when the job is done, make sure they actually leave the building.
The reality presented in The Big Con is sobering. We’ve built an economy that rewards the middleman more than the maker. We've prioritized the "appearance" of strategy over the "reality" of execution. But by recognizing the patterns of the con—the jargon, the dependency, the hollow promises of efficiency—we can start to take back control of our institutions.
Building internal capacity is slower. It’s often more frustrating. It involves dealing with human messy-ness instead of clean PowerPoint slides. But it’s the only way to build something that actually lasts. Stop paying for the shield and start doing the work. It’s cheaper in the long run, and you’ll actually remember how to do it yourself tomorrow.