John Galbraith 新工业国家 New Industrial State

John  Galbraith 新工业国家 New Industrial State 1967 

Technostructure & the "The New Industrial State" by John Kenneth Galbraith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meQAKA8SD7w

2023年7月9日

This video reviews John Kenneth Galbraith's book, The New Industrial State. This book essentially makes the argument that capitalism depreciates toward a centrally planned system where the corporate sector and the state merge into a colluding technostructure.

新工业国家

约翰·肯尼斯·加尔布雷斯 1967 年出版的书。1972 年、1978 年和 1985 年出版了三个修订版。

在书中，加尔布雷斯断言，在现代资本主义社会的工业部门中，传统的供需机制被大公司的规划所取代，这些规划使用广告等技术，并在必要时进行垂直整合。

这本书延续了加尔布雷斯 1966 年的 BBC Reith 讲座系列——一系列六次广播，也名为《新工业国家》——他在其中探讨了生产经济学以及大公司对国家的影响。

加尔布雷斯认为，这是因为涉及先进技术的生产过程需要长期规划（苏联社会也用类似的规划来应对这些相同的技术挑战），这涉及相当大的额外风险。加尔布雷斯认为，其结果之一是，古典经济理论中普遍理解的完全竞争不再是对工业部门的有效解释（尽管它在经济中仍然由小公司主导的部门仍然有用）。

加尔布雷斯认为，“工业体系”——他指的是（一般而言）控制经济关键部门约三分之二产出的公司——实际上是由技术结构而不是股东控制的；他声称技术结构的作用不是最大化利润（因为这涉及失败的风险），而主要是维持组织，作为次要目标，确保其进一步扩张。

他说，技术结构的一项主要目标是保持对公司的控制，因此它更喜欢通过留存利润而不是银行借款来融资；因此，股东的回报被降低，以确保公司不会冒着自力更生的风险。此外，工业体系的公司促进了非正式价格确定和价格稳定的制度，以确保长期规划是可行的。

加尔布雷思还断言，与小型企业最密切相关的传统风险概念与大型工业企业和企业集团的相关性越来越小。加尔布雷思说，大型企业在获得长期供应商和劳动合同方面具有优势，并且可以使用商品期货等金融工具来缓解原材料价格的波动，从而降低了风险。大型工业企业对政府经济和劳工政策的政治影响被认为是另一个因素，它往往会创造稳定的市场条件，而这对于企业的长期生产规划是必不可少的。

《新工业国家》与加尔布雷思 1958 年的作品《富裕社会》涵盖了大部分相同的内容，但大大扩展和延伸了这些思想。

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约翰·肯尼斯·加尔布雷斯：新工业国家

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1. 变革与规划系统

现代经济讨论的一个好奇心是变革的作用。人们认为它非常伟大；列举其形式或强调其范围是为了表明对常识的把握令人放心。然而，并没有太多变化。除了不满者之外，所有人都认为美国的经济体系是一个基本完美的结构。完善已经完善的东西并不容易。虽然发生了巨大的变化，但除了商品产量增加外，一切都与以前一样。

至于变化，毫无疑问。本世纪，尤其是二战开始以来，经济生活的创新和变革无论以何种方式计算都是巨大的。最明显的是越来越复杂和精密的技术应用于生产。

机器继续取代原始的人力。而且，随着它们被用来指导其他机器，它们越来越多地取代人类智力的原始形式。

八十年前，公司仍然局限于那些似乎必须大规模生产的行业——铁路、蒸汽航行、炼钢、石油开采和精炼、一些采矿。现在，它还销售杂货、磨谷物、出版报纸并提供公共娱乐，所有这些活动曾经都是个体业主或小公司的领域。最大的
公司部署了价值数十亿美元的设备和数十万名工人，分布在数十个地点，生产数百种产品。1974 年底，美国最大的 200 家制造企业（占所有制造企业的十分之一）拥有制造所用资产的三分之二，以及所有销售额、就业和净收入的五分之三以上。不仅集中度很高，而且集中度也很高。

1974 年底，最大的 200 家公司在所有制造业销售额、就业和资产中所占的份额超过了 1955 年最大的 500 家公司所占的份额！

八十年前，公司是所有者的工具，也是他们个性的体现。这些领袖的名字——卡内基、洛克菲勒、哈里曼、梅隆、古根海姆、福特——在全国闻名。他们现在仍为人所知，但

他们建立的艺术画廊和慈善基金会以及从政的后代却鲜为人知。

现在掌管这些大公司的那些人却无人知晓。在整整一代人的时间里，底特律和汽车行业以外的人都不知道通用汽车现任负责人的名字。和所有人一样，他有时在用支票付款时必须出示身份证明。福特、埃克森和通用动力也是如此。现在经营大公司的人并不拥有企业的多少股份。

他们不是由股东选出的，而通常是由董事会选出的，董事会成员自恋地自己选出。

同样，国家与经济的关系发生了变化，这也是一个普遍现象。 1 William N. Leonard 的服务，“合并、工业集中和反垄断政策”，《经济问题杂志》，第 10 卷，第 2 期（1976 年 6 月），第 356 页。

2 第 1 章

联邦、州和地方政府现在占所有经济活动的五分之一到四分之一（1976 年为 22%）。1929 年，这一比例约为 8%。2 这远远超过了印度这样一个自称社会主义国家的政府份额，大大超过了瑞典和挪威这两个古老的社会民主王国，与波兰的份额并不完全不相称，波兰是一个共产主义国家，但该国农业发达，农业仍为私人所有。所有公共活动的很大一部分（约占政府在商品和服务上的所有支出的三分之一）用于国防和（小得多的项目）太空探索。即使是保守派也不认为这些支出是社会主义。在其他地方，命名法不太确定。

此外，在现在所谓的凯恩斯革命之后，国家承诺监管经济中用于购买商品和服务的总收入。它力求确保足够的资金

政府通过购买现有劳动力所能生产的任何东西来获得权力。而且，政府更谨慎地，有时只是通过咒语或祈祷，试图阻止工资推高价格，阻止价格迫使工资持续上升。按照早期的标准，现代商品的生产相对可靠，但远非完全可靠。

此前，从资本主义最早出现到希特勒战争开始，扩张和衰退交替出现，间隔不定，但进程稳定。商业周期已成为经济研究的一个独立主题；预测其进程并解释其不规则性已成为《总统经济报告》，1977 年，第 187 页。

变革与计划系统成为一种谦虚的职业，其中理性、占卜和巫术元素以一种在原始宗教中从未见过的方式结合在一起。二战后的二十年里，没有严重的经济衰退。七十年代中期出现了严重的经济衰退，在住房等行业中非常严重。然而，人们普遍认为，这是一项旨在抑制通货膨胀的蓄意政策的结果，那些最强烈地认为通货膨胀仍然是一种自然现象的人是这项政策的责任人。

另外三个变化与既定的成就清单关系不大。首先，与商品销售相关的说服和劝诫手段进一步大幅增长。就其成本和所掌握的才能而言，这项活动正日益与生产商品的努力相媲美。衡量人类对这种说服的接触和敏感性本身就是一门蓬勃发展的科学。

其次，工会会员占劳动力的比例不再增加。它在 1956 年达到顶峰（25.2%），此后一直下降。

最后，高等教育入学人数大幅增加，同时提供高等教育的手段略有增加。

这被归因于对大众启蒙的全新而深刻的关注。与工会工人比例下降一样，它有着更深的根源。如果经济体系只需要数百万文盲无产阶级，那么这些很可能就是他们所需要的。

这些变化，或者其中的大部分，已经被广泛讨论过。但通常的做法是将它们孤立地看待，这大大降低了它们的影响。

它们彼此相关，是结果的起因。

所有这些都是更大的变化矩阵的一部分。就其对经济社会的影响而言，这个矩阵已经超过了其各部分的总和。

因此，人们提到了机器和复杂的技术。而这些又需要大量的资本投入。它们是由技术精湛的人设计和指导的。它们还涉及从生产决策到可销售产品出现之间的时间大大增加。

这些变化既需要大型商业组织，也为大型商业组织提供了机会。只有它才能部署必要的资本；只有它才能调动必要的技能。它还可以做得更多。在结果出现之前投入大量的资本和组织需要有远见，也需要采取一切可行措施确保预见的事情能够发生。毫无疑问，通用汽车将比穿着西装和斗篷的人更能影响周围的世界——它购买的价格和工资以及它出售的价格。

这还不是全部。高产量和高收入是先进技术、复杂有效的组织和社会中大群体有效索取收入的能力的成果，它们使很大一部分人口摆脱了物质匮乏的强迫和压力。

变革和计划系统

因此，他们的经济行为在某种程度上变得可塑性强。没有一个饥饿而清醒的人会被说服把最后一美元花在食物以外的任何东西上。但是，一个吃得好、穿得好、住得好、受到良好照顾的人可以在电动剃须刀和电动牙刷之间做出选择。除了价格和成本外，消费者需求也受到管理。这增加了一个控制行为的重要因素。

当对技术开发的投资非常高时，错误的技术判断或未能说服消费者购买产品可能会付出极其高昂的代价。如果

国家为更高级的技术发展买单，或为技术先进的产品保证市场。很容易找到适当的理由——国防、国家声望、公众的强烈需求，如石油产品的替代品。免于这种行为是社会主义的有害指控是自然而然的。因此，现代技术定义了现代国家日益增长的功能。

技术和相关的资本和时间要求也更直接地导致国家对需求的调节。一家公司在考虑改进汽车时，必须能够说服人们购买它。同样重要的是，人们能够这样做。这一点至关重要，因为必须提前投入大量的时间和金钱，而且产品在萧条时期和繁荣时期都很容易进入市场。因此，必须稳定总需求。

富裕增加了对这种总需求稳定的需要。一个生活在生存边缘的人必须花钱才能生存，他花的钱都花光了。收入充足的人可以储蓄，但不能保证他的储蓄会被其他人的支出或投资所抵消。此外，富裕社会的生产力和收入至少部分归功于大型组织——公司。公司也可以选择保留或储蓄收入——并且可以以那些强迫他人节俭的人独特的正义感来行使这一权利。不能保证个人和公司的储蓄会被支出抵消。因此，在一个福利很好的社会中，支出和需求的可靠性不如贫穷的社会。当现代技术带来的高成本和长期孕育需要更大的市场确定性时，它们就会失去可靠性。凯恩斯革命发生在历史上其他变化使其不可或缺的时刻。与本章开头提到的其他变化一样，它与其他变化密切相关，也是其他变化的原因和结果。

III

在经济学中，与小说和戏剧不同，过早地披露情节并没有什么坏处：本书的核心目的是将刚才提到的变化和其他变化视为一个相互关联的整体。我大胆地认为，当人们像本书一样努力看清现代经济生活时，人们会更清楚地看到它。

我还想表明，在这种更大的变化背景下，促使人类努力的力量是如何变化的。这违背了所有经济假设中最宏伟的假设，即人类在其经济变革和计划系统活动中受制于市场的权威。相反，我们拥有的经济体系，无论其

正式的意识形态如何，在很大程度上都是计划经济。决定生产什么的主动权不是来自主权消费者，他们通过市场发布指令，使生产机制服从于他们的最终意志。

相反，它来自庞大的生产组织，该组织向前迈进，控制它所服务的市场，并进一步使客户满足其需求。并且，这样做深深地影响了他的价值观和信仰——包括不少将被动员起来反对当前论点的人。从这一分析得出的结论之一是，工业体系之间存在着广泛的趋同。决定经济社会形态的是技术和组织的必要性，而不是意识形态的形象。总体而言，这是幸运的，尽管它不一定会受到那些将智力资本和道德热情投入到当前市场经济形象作为社会计划对立面的人的欢迎。它也不会受到他们的信徒的欢迎，他们以更少的智力投入，举着自由市场和自由企业的旗帜，从而将自由国家带入政治、外交或军事斗争。它也不会受到那些将计划完全等同于社会主义的人的欢迎。这里提出的思想以这样或那样的形式取得了进展。自 1967 年首次以目前的形式提出以来，已经取得了明显的进展。但它们还不是共识的思想。

信仰继续服从于工业必要性和便利性并不符合人类最伟大的愿景。它也不是完全安全的。关于这种服从的性质及其危险，我也将详细阐述。

IV
主题的界限是传统的和人为的；任何人都不应将其用作排除重要内容的借口。在现代社会思想中，没有什么比公共政策决策应该以某种方式按照大学部门和课程划分的观念更持久的了。事实并非如此。

在政府中不存在纯粹的经济、政治甚至纯粹医学的判断。人们也不能对这种努力的实际后果无动于衷，无论人们倾向于将这种漠不关心视为科学超脱的表现。

因此，在后面的章节中，我将讨论经济变化对社会和政治行为的影响，以及补救和改革。如前所述，我得出的结论是，我们在思想上和行动上都成为了我们为服务自己而创造的机器的仆人，我相信其他人会觉得很有说服力。在许多方面，这是一种舒适的奴役；有些人会惊奇地，甚至愤慨地看着任何提出逃避的人。有些人永远不会满足。我关心的是提出解放的一般路线。否则，我们将允许经济目标过度垄断我们的生活，并以牺牲其他更有价值的利益为代价。重要的不是我们商品的数量，而是生活的质量。

我们目前通过军事手段来支持先进技术的方法极其危险。它可能会让我们失去生存。我建议采用变革和计划系统的替代方案。我们的教育系统也有可能过于服务于经济目标，这也是一种危险。我建议采取保障措施。分析得出了关于个人与其辛劳以及社区与其计划之间的关系的结论。这些也将被讨论。我还讨论了现代经济对训练有素、受过教育的人力资源的依赖所固有的未实现的政治机会。

所有这些都将在后面的章节中讨论。想要政治平台的人显然必须努力向上爬。

V
美国商界领袖经常被这样的想法所吸引：如果要让这个系统生存下去，就必须对其特征进行更好的教育。在 60 年代中期和 70 年代中期，甚至对政府的怀疑也被压制了，美国商务部开始为教育工作服务。原因在于，基于对现代企业日常观察的经济机构的公众形象与高管惯常的自我辩护不符。毫不奇怪，高管对应该改变的是公众形象而不是自己的形象的想法反应良好。商业辩护总是强调众多企业之间的激烈竞争，这些企业都服从于市场。由此产生的教育总是以小企业为中心——商务部的一个特别引人注目的例子是两个孩子在树下经营柠檬水摊。4 换句话说，这种经济教育认为，通过考察资本很少或没有资本、由一两个人指导、没有复杂的公司结构和没有工会的企业，可以最好地理解资本主义。它的吸引力部分在于它剥夺了公司高管的所有权力，包括做错事的权力。它也有坚实的历史根源：经济生活始于小公司，资本很少，每个公司都在一个主人的指导下。

最后，一个系统的、内部一致的理论，即市场经济中的竞争性企业理论，可用于解释这一现象。这非常适合教学。

但这种对现代经济体系的看法并没有得到现实的认可。现在，除了少数怀旧、浪漫和顺从的经济学家之外，它也没有真正得到认可。本章前面提到的变化并没有均匀地分布在经济中。农业、卡车矿山、绘画、音乐创作、大量写作、专业、一些恶习、手工艺、一些零售贸易以及大量修理、清洁、翻新、美容和其他家庭和个人服务仍然属于个体业主的领域。资本、先进技术、复杂组织和我们并非偶然地认为的现代企业的其他标志是有限的或不存在的。

但大多数人现在认识到，这并不是经济中发生上述变化的部分。同样，它也不是经济中

你知道你的经济 ABC 吗？ 《利润与美国经济》，美国商务部，1965 年。

变革与计划系统将先进技术与大量资本的使用相结合，其中最显着的表现是现代大公司。几乎所有的通信、几乎所有的电力生产和分配、银行和保险、铁路和航空运输、大多数制造业和采矿业、相当一部分零售贸易和相当数量的娱乐都是由大公司进行或提供的。这些数字并不大；我们可以毫无错误地认为

大多数工作由几百家、最多一两千家大公司完成。这是我们自然而然地与现代工业社会联系起来的经济部分。

理解它就是理解最容易发生变化的部分，因此，它对我们的生活影响最大。智力的运用无可厚非，但理解经济的其余部分，就只能理解相对程度正在缩小（尽管它不会消失）且最不容易发生变化的部分。

经济的两个部分——一方面是技术动态、资本雄厚、组织高度完善的公司，另一方面是数十万小型传统业主——非常不同。这不是程度上的差异，而是渗透到经济组织和行为的各个方面的差异，包括努力的动机本身。甚至在进一步制定之前，为以大公司为特征的经济部分起个名字会很方便。一个是现成的；我将称之为计划系统。计划系统反过来又是新工业国家的主要特征。12 第 1 章

The New Industrial State 

1967 book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Three revised editions appeared in 1972, 1978 and 1985.

Discussion

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 (and that these same technological challenges were answered with similar types of planning in Soviet societies) 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 (although it is still useful in sectors of the economy that are still dominated by small firms).

Galbraith argues that the "industrial system" – by which he means (in general terms) the companies which control around two-thirds of output in key sectors of the economy – are controlled in practice by a technostructure rather than shareholders; he claims that the technostructure does not act to maximise profit (as that involves the risk of failure) but principally to maintain the organisation and, as a secondary aim, to ensure its further expansion.

He says that a key aim of the technostructure is to maintain its control over the company, and so it prefers financing via retained profits to bank borrowing; thus returns to shareholders are lowered to ensure the company does not risk its self-reliance. Furthermore, the companies of the industrial system facilitate a system of informal price fixing and price stability to ensure long-term planning is feasible.

Galbraith also asserts that the traditional notions of risk most closely associated with small enterprise become less relevant to large industrial enterprises and conglomerates. Risk is diminished, Galbraith says, by advantages large enterprises have in securing longer-term supplier and labor contracts, and by the use of financial instruments such as commodity futures to mitigate volatility in raw materials prices. Political influence of large industrial concerns in governmental economic and labor policy is cited as another factor that tends to create the stable market conditions that are necessary for corporations' long-term planning of production.

The New Industrial State covers much of the same ground as Galbraith's 1958 work, The Affluent Society, but substantially expands and extends those ideas.

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1. Change and the Planning System

A curiosity of modern economic discussion is the role of change. It is imagined to be very great; to list its forms or emphasize its extent is to show a reassuring
grasp of the commonplace. Yet not much is supposed to change. The economic system of the United States is accepted by all but the malcontent as a largely perfect
structure. It is not easy to perfect what has been perfected. There is massive change but, except as the output of goods increases, all remains as before.

As to the change there is no doubt. The innovations and alterations in economic life in this century, and more especially since the beginning of World War II, have, by any calculation, been great. The most visible has been the application of increasingly intricate and sophisticated technology to the production of things.

Machines have continued to replace crude manpower. And increasingly, as they are used to instruct other machines, they replace the cruder forms of human intelligence.

Eighty years ago the corporation was still confined to those industries—railroading, steam navigation, steel-making, petroleum recovery and refining, some mining—where, it seemed, production had to be on a large scale. Now it also sells groceries, mills grain, publishes newspapers and provides public entertainment, all activities that were once the province of the individual proprietor or the insignificant firm. The largest
firms deploy billions of dollars’ worth of equipment and hundreds of thousands of men in scores of locations to produce hundreds of products. At the end of 1974, the largest 200 manufacturing enterprises in the United States—one tenth of one percent of all manufacturing firms—had two thirds of all assets used in manufacturing and more than three fifths of all sales, employment and net income. Not only is the concentration great but so is the rate at which it proceeds.

At the end of 1974, the largest 200 had a greater share of all manufacturing sales, employment and assets than the largest 500 had in 1955!

Eighty years ago the corporation was the instrument of its owners and a projection of their personalities. The names of these principals—Carnegie, Rockefeller, Harriman, Mellon, Guggenheim, Ford—were known across the land. They are still known, but for
the art galleries and philanthropic foundations they established and their descendants who are in politics.

The men who now head the great corporations are unknown. Not for a generation have people outside Detroit and the automobile industry known the name of the current head of General Motors. In the manner of all men, he must, on occasion, produce identification when paying by check. So with Ford, Exxon and General Dynamics. The men who now run the large corporations own no appreciable share of the enterprise.

They are selected not by the stockholders but, in the common case, by a board of directors which, narcissistically, they selected themselves.

Equally it is a commonplace that the relation of the state to the economy has changed. The services of 1 William N. Leonard, “Mergers, Industrial Concentration, and
Antitrust Policy,” Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. X, No. 2 (June 1976), p. 356.

2 Chapter 1

federal, state and local governments now account for between one fifth and one quarter (in 1976, 22 percent) of all economic activity. In 1929, it was about
eight percent.2 This far exceeds the government share in such an avowedly socialist state as India, considerably exceeds that in the anciently social democratic
kingdoms of Sweden and Norway and is not wholly incommensurate with the share in Poland, a Communistcountry which, however, is heavily agricultural and which has left its agriculture in private ownership. A very large part of all public activity (about one third of all government spending on goods and services) is for national defense and (a much smaller item) the exploration of space. These outlays are not regarded even by
conservatives as socialism. Elsewhere the nomenclature is less certain.

Additionally, in the wake of what is now called the Keynesian Revolution, the state undertakes to regulate the total income available for the purchase of goods and services in the economy. It seeks to ensure sufficient purchasing power to buy whatever the current labor force can produce. And, more cautiously, sometimes only by incantation or prayer, it seeks to keep wages from shoving up prices and prices from forcing up wages in a persistent upward spiral. By earlier standards the production of goods in modern times has been relatively, though far from completely, reliable.

Previously, from the earliest appearance of capitalism until the beginning of Hitler’s war, expansion and recession had followed each other at irregular intervals but in steady procession. The business cycle had become a separate subject of economic study; the forecasting of its course and the explanation of its irregularities had Economic Report of the President, 1977, p. 187.

Change and the Planning System become a modest profession in which reason, divination and elements of witchcraft had been combined in a manner not elsewhere seen save in the primitive religions. In the two decades following World War II, there was no serious depression. In the mid-seventies there was a sharp recession, very severe in such industries as housing. By wide agreement, however, it was the result of a deliberate act of policy to arrest inflation, those holding most vehemently that inflation was
still a natural phenomenon being those responsible for the policy.

Three further changes are less intimately a part of the established litany of accomplishment. First, there has been a further massive growth in the apparatus of
persuasion and exhortation that is associated with the sale of goods. In its cost and in the talent it commands, this activity is coming increasingly to rival the effort
devoted to the production of goods. Measurement of the exposure, and susceptibility, of human beings to this persuasion is itself a flourishing science.

Second, union membership as a proportion of the labor force is no longer increasing. It reached a peak (of 25.2 percent) in 1956 and has since declined.

Finally, there has been a large expansion in enrollment for higher education, together with a somewhat more modest increase in the means for providing it.

This has been attributed to a new and penetrating concern for popular enlightenment. As with the fall in the proportion of workers enrolled by unions, it hasdeeper roots. Had the economic system need only for 3 Handbook of Labor Statistics, 1969 (United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics), Bulletin No. 1630, p. 351;

Handbook of Labor Statistics, 1976 (United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics), Bulletin No. 1905, p. 297.

4 Chapter 1
II
millions of unlettered proletarians, these, very plausibly, are what would be provided.
These changes, or most of them, have been much discussed. But to view them in isolation from each other, the usual practice, is greatly to minimize their effect.

They are related to each other as cause to consequence.

All are part of a yet larger matrix of change. In its effect on economic society this matrix has been more than the sum of its parts.

Thus mention has been made of machines and sophisticated technology. These require, in turn, a heavy investment of capital. They are designed and guided by technically sophisticated men. They involve, also, a greatly increased elapse of time between any decision to produce and the emergence of a salable product.

From these changes come both the need and the opportunity for the large business organization. It alone can deploy the requisite capital; it alone can mobilize
the requisite skills. It can also do more. The large commitment of capital and organization well in advance of result requires that there be foresight and also that all feasible steps be taken to ensure that what is foreseen will transpire. It can hardly be doubted that General Motors will be better able to influence the world around
it—the prices and wages at which it buys and the prices at which it sells—than a man in suits and cloaks.

Nor is this all. The high production and income which are the fruits of advanced technology, complex and effective organization and the ability of large groups in the society to make effective their claim on income have removed a great part of the population from the compulsions and pressures of physical want.

Change and the Planning System 

In consequence, their economic behavior has become in some measure malleable. No hungry man who is also sober can be persuaded to use his last dollar for anything but food. But a well-fed, well-clad, wellsheltered and otherwise well-tended person can be
persuaded as between an electric razor and an electric toothbrush. Along with prices and costs, consumer demand has become subject to management. This adds an important further element of control over behavior.

When investment in technological development is very high, a wrong technical judgment or a failure in persuading consumers to buy the product can be extremely expensive. The cost and associated risk can be greatly reduced if the state pays for more exalted
technical development or guarantees a market for the technically advanced product. Suitable justification— national defense, national prestige, deeply felt public
need, as for alternatives to petroleum products—can readily be found. Exemption from the damaging charge that the action is socialist is automatically forthcoming. Modern technology thus defines a growing function of the modern state.

Technology and associated requirements in capital and time also lead even more directly to the regulation of demand by the state. A corporation, contemplating an automobile of revised aspect, must be able to persuade people to buy it. It is equally important that people be able to do so. This is vital where heavy advance commitments of time and money must be made and where the product could as easily come to market in a time of depression as of prosperity. So there must be stabilization of overall demand.

Affluence adds to the need for such stabilization of aggregate demand. A man who lives close to the margin of subsistence must spend to exist and what he 6 Chapter 1 spends is spent. A man with ample income can save, and there is no assurance that what he saves will be offset by the spending or investment of others. Moreover, a rich society owes its productivity and income,at least in part, to large-scale organization—to the corporation. Corporations also have the option of retaining or saving from earnings—and can exercise it with the unique sense of righteousness of men who are imposing thrift on others. There is no guarantee that this personal and corporate saving will be offset by spending. In consequence, in a community of much wellbeing, spending and hence demand are less reliable than in a poor one. They lose their reliability precisely
when high costs and the long period of gestation imposed by modern technology require greater certainty of markets. The Keynesian Revolution occurred at the moment in history when other change had made it indispensable. Like the other changes with which this chapter began, it is intimately a cause and consequence of yet other change.

III

In economics, unlike fiction and the theater, there is no harm in a premature disclosure of the plot: the central purpose of this book is to see the changes just mentioned and others as an interlocked whole. I venture to think that modern economic life is seen much more clearly when, as here, there is such effort to see it whole.

I am also concerned to show how, in this larger context of change, the forces inducing human effort have changed. This assaults the most majestic of all economic assumptions, namely that man, in his economic Change and the Planning System activities, is subject to the authority of the market. Instead we have an economic system which, whatever its
formal ideological billing, is, in substantial part, a planned economy. The initiative in deciding what is to be produced comes not from the sovereign consumer who, through the market, issues the instructions that bend the productive mechanism to his ultimate will.

Rather it comes from the great producing organization which reaches forward to control the markets that it is presumed to serve and, beyond, to bend the customer to its needs. And, in so doing, it deeply influences his values and beliefs—including not a few that will be mobilized in resistance to the present argument. One of the conclusions that follows from this analysis is that there is a broad convergence between industrial systems. The imperatives of technology and organization, not the images of ideology, are what determine the shape of economic society. This, on the whole, is  fortunate, although it will not necessarily be welcomed by those whose intellectual capital and moral fervor are invested in the present image of the market economy as the antithesis of social planning. Nor will it be welcomed by their disciples, who, with even smaller intellectual investment, carry the banners of free markets and free enterprise and therewith, by definition, of the free nations into political, diplomatic or military battle. Nor will it be welcomed by those who identify
planning exclusively with socialism. The ideas here offered have, in one form or another, been gaining ground. There has been visible movement since they were first offered in the present form in 1967. But they are not yet the ideas of the consensus.

The continuing subordination of belief to industrial necessity and convenience is not in accordance with the greatest vision of man. Nor is it entirely safe. On the
8 Chapter 1 nature of this subjugation, and its dangers, I shall also dwell at some length.

IV
The boundaries of a subject matter are conventional and artificial; none should use them as an excuse for excluding the important. Nothing so persists in modern social thought as the notion that decisions on public policy should somehow divide along the lines of university departments and curricula. They do not.

In government there are no exclusively economic, political, not even any purely medical judgments. Nor can one be indifferent to the practical consequences of an effort such as this, whatever the tendency to celebrate such indifference as a manifestation of scientific detachment.

Accordingly, in the later chapters I turn to the effect of economic change on social and political behavior, and to remedy and reform. As noted, I am led to the
conclusion, which I trust others will find persuasive, that we are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us. This is, in many ways, a comfortable servitude; some will look with wonder, and perhaps even indignation, on anyone who proposes escape. Some people are never content. I am concerned to suggest the general lines of emancipation. Otherwise we will allow economic goals to have an undue monopoly of our lives and at the expense of other and more valuable interests. What counts is not the quantity of our goods but the quality of life.

Our present method of underwriting advanced technology by resort to military justification is exceedingly dangerous. It could cost us our existence. Here I suggest
Change and the Planning System alternatives. There is also danger that our educational system will be too strongly in the service of economic goals. Here I suggest safeguards. The analysis leads to conclusions on the relation of the individual to his toil and the community to its planning. These also are discussed. And I deal with the unrealized political opportunities that are inherent in the dependence of the modern economy on trained and educated manpower.

This all comes in the later chapters. The man who wants a political platform must obviously work his way up the stairs.

V
Recurrently American business leaders are captured by the thought that if the system is to survive, there must be much better education as to its character. In the mid-sixties and again in the mid-seventies, even suspicion of government was suppressed, and the
United States Department of Commerce was brought into the service of the educational effort. The reason is that the public image of economic institutions, based on everyday observation of modern corporate enterprise, does not conform to the executive’s accustomed defense of himself. Not surprisingly, he reacts well to the thought that it is the public image, not his own, that should be changed. The business defense invariably emphasizes the vigorous competition of numerous firms, all subordinate to the market. The resulting education as invariably centers on the small enterprise—in a particularly compelling example from the Department of Commerce, it was on the operation of a lemonade stand conducted by two children under the trees.4 This economic education holds, in other words, that capitalism can best be understood by examining enterprises with little or no capital, guided by one or two people, without the complications of corporate structure and where there is no union. Part of its appeal is in the way it removes from the corporate executive all power, including the power to do anything wrong. It also has firm historical roots: economic life began with small firms, with small capital, each one under the guiding hand of a single master.

Finally, a systematic and internally consistent theory, that of the competitive firm in the market economy, is available for the explanation. This lends itself well to
pedagogy.

But this view of the modern economic system is not sanctioned by reality. Nor is it now really sanctioned—a nostalgic, romantic and acquiescent minority apart—by economists. The changes mentioned earlier in this chapter have not spread themselves evenly over the economy. Agriculture, truck mines, painting, musical composition, much writing, the professions, some vice, handicrafts, some retail trade and a large number of repairing, cleaning, refurbishing, cosmetic and other household and personal services are still in the province of the individual proprietor. Capital, advanced technology, complex organization and the other hallmarks of what we have come, not accidentally, to consider modern enterprise are limited or absent.

But this, most now recognize, is not the part of the economy wherein occur the changes just mentioned. Equally it is not the part of the economy which

Do You Know Your Economic ABC’s? Profits and the American Economy, United States Department of Commerce, 1965. 

Change and the Planning System combines advanced technology with massive use of
capital and of which the most conspicuous manifestation is the modern large corporation. Nearly all communications, nearly all production and distribution of
electric power, banking and insurance, rail and air transportation, most manufacturing and mining, a substantial share of retail trade and a considerable amount of entertainment are conducted or provided by large firms.The numbers are not great; we may think without error of most work being done by a few hundred, at the most a thousand or two, large firms.

This is the part of the economy which, automatically, we identify with the modern industrial society.

To understand it is to understand that part which is
most subject to change and which, accordingly, is most
changing our lives. No exercise of intelligence is to be
deplored but to understand the rest of the economy is
to understand only that part which is diminishing in
relative extent (though it will not disappear) and which
is least subject to change.

The two parts of the economy—the world of the
technically dynamic, massively capitalized and highly
organized corporations on the one hand and of the
hundreds of thousands of small and traditional proprietors on the other—are very different. It is not a difference of degree but a difference which invades every aspect of economic organization and behavior, including
the motivation to effort itself. It will be convenient,
even in advance of more formulation, to have a name
for the part of the economy which is characterized
by the large corporations. One is readily at hand;
I shall refer to it as the Planning System. The planning
system, in turn, is the dominant feature of the New
Industrial State.
12 Chapter 1