Product Description

With searing wit and incisive commentary, John Kenneth Galbraith redefined America's perception of itself in The New Industrial State, one of his landmark works. The United States is no longer a free-enterprise society, Galbraith argues, but a structured state controlled by the largest companies. Advertising is the means by which these companies manage demand and create consumer "need" where none previously existed. Multinational corporations are the continuation of this power system on an international level. The goal of these companies is not the betterment of society, but immortality through an uninterrupted stream of earnings.

First published in 1967, The New Industrial State continues to resonate today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #297442 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Review
Praise for the original edition: "The New Industrial State deserves the widest possible attention and discussion.
(Raymond J. Saulnier New York Times )

Praise for the original edition: "[The New Industrial State] is a dazzling work, full of brilliant epigrams, intriguing aphorisms and sardonic humor.
(Harvey H. Segal Washington Post )

Praise for the original edition: "[W]ithout a doubt one of the most provocative offerings of our time in the realm of economics.
(John McCutcheon Chicago Tribune )

About the Author
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) was an eminent economist, the author of thirty-one books, and a member of four U.S. presidential administrations. He served as U.S. ambassador to India and president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. At the time of his death, he was Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard University.

Customer Reviews

Masterly Analysis of Managed Capitalism
This 1967 book by the American Keynsian economist JK Galbraith is an extremely acute dissection of the post-World War II economic structure of Western countries. In it, he shows that the imperatives of finance (such are the scales of the large corporations) and technology (so complex are new products) make the private sector as liable to "planning" as the Soviet regimes, before the Berlin Wall came down. The difference is that where the Soviet system was top-down, the Western system manages demand through advertising, promotions, synergy and focus groups. (Think of when a blockbuster film is released - its toys are availble at McDonalds, its computer games reinfrce the message, media outlets exchange access for favourable notices - even for a film as bad as "Godzilla" - or new products are hyped to the "savvy" then filter down through the levels of fashionability).

Galbraith also introduces the notion of the "technostructure", the level of society which is in charge of the technical aspects of the products it creates and sells, saying that this stratum is now the most important level of society, rather than CEOs whom he says are more like shiny representatives than wielding supreme power. He also demonstrates the ways in which groups within organisation strive for their goals over other groups.

While this book is fascinating, extremely acute, pertinent and enjoyably well-written, it does have a certain pre-1973 flavour. Thus, some of its macro-economic assumptions (such as the management of demand, maintaining full employment etc) are somewhat out of date, after Reagan and Thatcher. However I would guess that following the economic crash of 2008, these assumptions will become fashionable once again.

Galbraith was one of the very few people to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice, such was his towering influence upon American letters and politics (he served in four administrations and wrote over four dozen books). This book is probably his best, and certainly one of his most important.

Don't be misled by the publisher's synopsis
This isn't just another rant about the evils of the corporations. It's a very cool and sharp analysis that's worth buying, reading, and re-reading just for the chapter on the imperatives of technology.