The New Industrial State

Blurb

The New Industrial State is a 1967 book by John Kenneth Galbraith. In it, Galbraith asserts that within the industrial sectors of modern capitalist societies, the traditional mechanism of supply and demand is supplanted by the planning of large corporations, using techniques such as advertising and, where necessary, vertical integration.
The book followed Galbraith's 1966 series of BBC Reith Lectures - a series of six radio broadcasts, also titled The New Industrial State, in which he explored the economics of production and the effect large corporations could have over the state.
Galbraith argues that this is made necessary by the long-term planning required for production processes involving advanced technology which involve substantial additional risk. One of the results of this is, according to Galbraith, that perfect competition as generally understood in classical economic theory is no longer a useful explanation of the industrial sector.