Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: The Big Con--A Confidence Trick In every room Surfing capitalism's trends Unlearning by not doing 2. What Is the Consulting Industry? A taxonomy Meet the consultants The scale of consulting Getting in the room Interrogating the omnipresence 3. Where Consulting Came From: A Brief History When consultants counseled From engineering to the matrix Consulting by numbers Shaping post-war capitalism Neoliberalism's opportunities Privatization and the growth of consulting giants Consultants without borders Lucrative transitions Taming a Goliath? 4. The Outsourcing Turn: Government by Consultancy and the Third Way Contracts at sacle and scope "Reinventing" government Who contracts the contractors? Digital-era outsourcing Consulting the financial crisis Contracting for austerity Auditing the outsourcers 5. The Big Confidence Trick: Consultology and Economic Rents Why bring in the consultants? Extracting rents The best and brightest Talent drain Case-savvy and PowerPoint-ready Quasi-academia and fast fashions Rubber stamping 6. Evading the Risks, Reaping the Rewards: The Business Model Consulting risk The art of limited liability Shareholder value in public firms Risk shifts after acquisitions 7. Infantilizing Organizations: When Learning Is Undermined Across Government and Business Extortionate costs for likely failures How do organizations learn? Learning from consultants? Beyond budgets: The consequences for future learning Capture by brochuremanship "Cronyism" and incapacity Skeletonizing business Apotheosis: Betting on management, stripping out science 8. Colliding Interests: Consultancies and Democracy Privatizing bankruptcy, avoiding blame Both sides of the street? Poachers and gamekeepers Hidden capital, minimized taxes Arresting development Bargaining against labor Democracy dies in the shadow government 9. Climate Consulting: An Existential Threat? The turning point The dawn of climate consulting A brief history of (market-driven) climate governance Manipulating models Conflicting interests: Running democracy on fumes Resisting accountability: The case of ESG Future-proofing: Commitment with action 10. Conclusion: A Government That Rows So It Can Steer Innovating from within A government that so it can steer Bibliography Notes Index