Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The eclipse of The New Industrial State?
- 2 A life in our times
- 3 The economics of John Kenneth Galbraith
- 4 The methodology of John Kenneth Galbraith
- 5 The general theory of advanced development
- 6 Why people are poor
- 7 Uncertainty and the modern corporation
- 8 A theory of the multinational corporation
- 9 The management of specific demand
- 10 Money and the real world
- 11 A man for our times
- 12 The origins of the Galbraithian system: talking to John Kenneth Galbraith
- References
- Additional works by Galbraith
- Index
5 - The general theory of advanced development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The eclipse of The New Industrial State?
- 2 A life in our times
- 3 The economics of John Kenneth Galbraith
- 4 The methodology of John Kenneth Galbraith
- 5 The general theory of advanced development
- 6 Why people are poor
- 7 Uncertainty and the modern corporation
- 8 A theory of the multinational corporation
- 9 The management of specific demand
- 10 Money and the real world
- 11 A man for our times
- 12 The origins of the Galbraithian system: talking to John Kenneth Galbraith
- References
- Additional works by Galbraith
- Index
Summary
Galbraith sets out to substitute for Marshall a picture, based on a general observation, of The New Industrial State. His account of the behavior of giant firms appears plausible or, at the very least, worth discussing, but it has had no success as an ideological doctrine.
Joan Robinson (1977: 1326)In many modern business enterprises neither bankers nor families were in control. Ownership became widely scattered. The stockholders did not have influence, knowledge, experience, or commitment to take part in the high command. Salaried managers determined long-term policy as well as managing short-term operating activities. They dominated top as well as lower and middle management. Such an enterprise controlled by its managers can properly be identified as managerial, and a system dominated by such firms is called managerial capitalism.
Alfred Chandler (1977: 10)At its core Galbraith's thesis was that the economic ideas that once interpreted the world of poverty have made little adjustment to the world of affluence which has been ushered in by the modern corporation. Galbraith's principal theoretical contribution is foreshadowed in American Capitalism (1952a), and unfolds more clearly into view in his trilogy: The Affluent Society (1958a); The New Industrial State (1967a), and: Economics and the Public Purpose (1973a). Throughout these works Galbraith focused on the concentration of economic power and the control, role, and influence of the technostructure. Galbraith highlighted how the dynamics of the large corporation challenge the doctrine that the consumer is sovereign, and he examined the resultant social and environmental imbalance ushered in by it.
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- Information
- The Economics of John Kenneth GalbraithIntroduction, Persuasion, and Rehabilitation, pp. 102 - 145Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010