The Role of the State
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 1966
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Professor John Kenneth Galbraith is the Paul M Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University and is the author of 'The Affluent Society'. In his Reith series entitled 'The New Industrial State', he explores the economics of production.
In this lecture entitled 'The Role of the State', Professor Galbraith explores the relationship states have with large Corporations. He argues that the state and private industry are moving closer together and warns there is a danger that the state could become too involved with industry, and consequently policies could be influenced by these corporations. Galbraith looks at what the state should be providing for its citizens.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures. |
| 0:04.7 | This lecture in the series, The New Industrial State, given by John K. Galbraith, was originally |
| 0:11.2 | broadcast in 1966. |
| 0:14.2 | I have undertaken the show in these lectures that the modern industrial society, or that part of it which is composed of the large corporations, |
| 0:23.6 | is in all essential to planned economy. By that I mean that production decisions are taken |
| 0:28.6 | not in response to consumer demand as expressed in the market, rather they are taken by producers. |
| 0:35.6 | These decisions are reflected in the prices that are set in the markets |
| 0:39.0 | and in the further steps that are taken to ensure that people will buy what is produced |
| 0:43.8 | and sold at those prices. |
| 0:46.5 | The ultimate influence is authority. |
| 0:52.5 | The role of such planning authority is also manifested in the prices that are set for the things that business enterprises buy, |
| 0:58.0 | and it is reflected in the further steps that ensure that the requisite materials and components for production will be forthcoming at these prices, |
| 1:08.0 | and it is manifested in the decisions to withhold earnings for |
| 1:13.1 | reinvestment and thus for expansion of the firms and ultimately the economy. Now I'm not arguing |
| 1:20.4 | that market influences are entirely excluded from effect on these decisions. Economics as it exists, |
| 1:26.9 | rather than as it is taught, has very few pure cases. |
| 1:30.3 | It is a cocktail of compote. |
| 1:32.3 | But the notion that the consumer is the sovereign influence in the economy, that all decisions |
| 1:37.3 | begin with him, is a pure case that will not do, or it will serve only those who wish |
| 1:42.3 | to believe in fairy tales. The important decisions in the modern economy are made by producing organizations |
| 1:49.0 | in the service of their own goals, and in one way or another, public behavior is accommodated |
| 1:55.0 | to these decisions, thus the planning. |
... |
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