This year's Reith Lecturer is Canadian-American economist Professor John Kenneth Galbraith. He is currently the Paul M Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University and is the author of the bestseller book 'The Affluent Society'. He has had a diverse career including being Director of the State Department Office of Economic Security Policy and a Member of the Board of Editors at Fortune Magazine. In his Reith series entitled 'The New Industrial State', Professor Galbraith explores the economics of production and the effect on the development of the State.

In this lecture entitled 'Planning and Technological Imperatives', Professor Galbraith focuses on the importance of planning when developing the technological infrastructure of a country. Society is now dependent on machine power rather than manpower, and this change has transformed the economic process. He considers how technology has created this interrelated complex matrix which, Galbraith argues, ultimately leads to the diminished effectiveness of the market. Thus the market is replaced by planning. Show less