The core of John Kenneth Galbraith's theory

As a representative of the new institutional school, Galbraith inherited and developed the "Van Buren tradition" and put forward the theory of new industrial state and dual system from the perspective of power transfer theory. According to Galbraith's power transfer theory, the importance of "the most important factor of production" in human society will constantly change. In different societies and different periods of the same society, whoever has mastered the most important factors of production will have mastered the power. Take capitalist society as an example, the most important factor of production in the industrialization period is capital, so power is in the hands of capitalists; In the post-industrial period, capital is no longer the most important factor of production, and its position is replaced by technology (Galbraith refers to technology actually including technical knowledge and management knowledge), so social power falls into the hands of technical organization members or technical experts, including scientific and technological personnel and management personnel.

In the post-industrial period, the internal interests and power structure of enterprises, especially large companies, have also changed accordingly. In the period of industrialization, it is capitalists who are most concerned about the future of enterprises (or companies). In the post-industrial period, the separation of ownership and control of the company makes capitalists (that is, shareholders) without professional knowledge have no right to ask about the management activities of the company; Their concern about the company is no longer single: which company they buy has more prospects. However, technical experts have become the actual owners of the company. They are closely related to the interests of the company and have become one with the company. In Galbraith, large companies controlled by technical experts are called "mature companies", while the new economy composed of "mature companies" is called "new industrial countries". The essence of Galbraith's new socialist theory is that capitalism and socialism will eventually converge, and as long as social reform is carried out, "new socialism" can be realized. In Galbraith's view, the convergence of these two social systems is the inevitable result of the development of modern economy and science and technology, and the plan will eventually replace the market. Its concrete performance is to manage demand and control price; The technical class will eventually replace the capitalist's power to take charge of the planning system; The state will certainly exercise the function of regulating total demand, prices and wages, and devote itself to setting up education and developing science and technology. Galbraith believes that by limiting the power of the capitalist social planning system and improving the status of the market system, the power and income of these two departments can be equalized, thus realizing "new socialism". Galbraith's new socialist theory has seen some general development trends of modern mass production, such as contradictions and conflicts between the planned system and the market system. However, his prescription for solving this contradiction (for example, the state is responsible for regulating aggregate demand, prices and wages, etc. ) may only play a role in alleviating contradictions, but it cannot achieve the goal of radical cure.