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Peter Drucker
162 quotes
“The most dangerous and at the same time most stupid explanation of fascism is the propaganda theory. In the first place, I have never been able to find anyone who could reconcile it with the fact that right up to the fascist victory—and in Italy beyond it—literally all means of propaganda were in the hands of uncompromising enemies of fascism. There was not one widely-read newspaper but poured ridicule on Hitler and Mussolini while the Nazi and the fascist press were unread and on the verge of bankruptcy. The radio in Germany, owned by the government, issued one anti-Nazi broadside after the other. More powerful than both, the established churches used all the enormous direct influence of the pulpit and the confessional to fight fascism and Nazism.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of these denials of European tradition one is especially important: that is the refutation of the demand that the political and social order and the authority set up under it have to justify themselves as benefiting their subjects. Hardly any other concept or idea of our past is held up to so much ridicule by fascism as that of the justification of power. ‘Power is its own justification’ is regarded as self-evident. Nothing shows better how far the totalitarian revolution has already gone than the general acceptance of this new maxim throughout Europe as a matter of course... [I]t is the most startling innovation. For the last two thousand years... justification of power and authority has been the central problem of European political thought and... political history. And since Europe became Christian there has never been any other approach... than... seeking justification in the benefit which the exercise of power confers upon its subjects... Not even the most fanatical advocates of absolute monarchy would have dared to justify the sovereign otherwise.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The political and social conclusion from the freedom of the individual is self-government, self-government as a right and as a duty of the individual. If there is no individual decision in self-government, it is only a sham. But it is just as much a sham and a camouflage for tyranny if there is no individual responsibility. There must be active, responsible, and spontaneous participation of the individual in government as his government, in its decisions as his decisions, in its burdens as his burdens. Political freedom is neither easy nor automatic, neither pleasant nor secure. It is the responsibility of the individual for the decisions of society as if they were his own decisions—as in moral truth and accountability they are.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]echnical questions... constitute the bulk of our daily problems... But to everyone there is one correct answer. What is correct today may be made incorrect tomorrow by an advance in our knowledge or experience or by changes in the facts; but at any given time and place there is one optimum... provable, measurable, demonstrable... [i.e.,] objectively correct. ...[T]hat means that the human will does not enter. Without human will, however, there is no choice... no freedom. The whole technical and scientific field, is... ethically neutral; and freedom, like all other basic values, is an ethical value.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Without... a subconscious unity, understanding of each other's behavior is difficult to attain. ...We have all ...had experience ...where someone from a different environment, a different region of the country, a different social group, perhaps a different country, behaves contrary to what we consider normal behavior ...In international affairs we have had a grotesque and tragic example of such failure to understand, and of its dangers, in Mr. Neville Chamberlain's profound belief that Hitler must react, think, and act like a successful British businessman; and it was probably Hitler's undoing that he expected the British and Americans to react and act in the "realistic" fashion of a Nazi boss.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[N]othing is easier to attain than full employment... All we would have to do, for instance, would be to continue a war-economy at no more, perhaps, than half its present level. Or we could adopt some sort of state socialism, under which the surplus resources... would be employed on non-economic projects, it makes... little difference what twentieth century equivalent of the Egyptian pyramids... so long as we do not use the surplus labor to produce ordinary economic goods. ...But we refuse to accept the kind of society to which either [a permanent war economy or state socialism] would lead. We demand more than a stable society, we demand a good society. Specifically, we demand of our economic system... that it produce goods... that add to the wealth... and... that these goods be produced... under... the free enterprise system.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To eliminate depressions we must distribute capital investment... to eliminate the collapse of producer goods during the slack years... through a taxation policy... funds... should be spread... by means of a fiscal policy which rewards the accumulation of capital funds to be used for employment-creating investments in slack years. ...At the same time we should be able to organize for a steady expansion of our economic activity. One way of doing this would be to organize systematically the satisfaction of such major unfulfilled needs as housing. ...The only thing we lack today is the organization necessary for the mass production and mass assembly of houses, which could easily by supplied either by large corporation or by local cooperatives. ...[T]he problem of full employment is primarily one of organizing the resources which we so amply possess. ...[I]t requires that rarest of all qualities, political imagination ...”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[A] totalitarian country... has a much greater freedom of political action and can use whatever policies seem expedient regardless of their moral or philosophical implications. ...[T]here is nothing weaker than a free society which no longer believes strongly enough in the principles on which it is founded to base a living faith on them, but still believes strongly enough in them to be unable to act contrary to them; for such a society will be paralyzed. ...But ...nothing is stronger than a free society which is conscious of its beliefs and vigorous in its adherence to them. For such a society possesses a moral strength and dignity and inspires a loyalty among its members which are invincible.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won't survive. It's as large a change as when we first got the printed book. Do you realize that the cost of higher education has risen as fast as the cost of health care? And for the middle-class family, college education for their children is as much of a necessity as is medical care—without it the kids have no future. Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any visible improvement in either the content or the quality of education, means that the system is rapidly becoming untenable. Higher education is in deep crisis.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Seeing things as they really are, Forbes (March 10, 1997)
“...the information revolution. Almost everybody is sure ...that it is proceeding with unprecedented speed; and ...that its effects will be more radical than anything that has gone before. Wrong, and wrong again. Both in its speed and its impact, the information revolution uncannily resembles its two predecessors ...The first industrial revolution, triggered by James Watt's improved steam engine in the mid-1770s...did not produce many social and economic changes until the invention of the railroad in 1829 ...Similarly, the invention of the computer in the mid-1940s, ...it was not until 40 years later, with the spread of the Internet in the 1990s, that the information revolution began to bring about big economic and social changes. ...the same emergence of the “super-rich” of their day, characterized both the first and the second industrial revolutions. ...These parallels are close and striking enough to make it almost certain that, as in the earlier industrial revolutions, the main effects of the information revolution on the next society still lie ahead.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The way ahead" Economist.com (November 2001)
“This new knowledge economy will rely heavily on knowledge workers. ...the most striking growth will be in “knowledge technologists:” computer technicians, software designers, analysts in clinical labs, manufacturing technologists, paralegals. ...They are not, as a rule, much better paid than traditional skilled workers, but they see themselves as “professionals.” Just as unskilled manual workers in manufacturing were the dominant social and political force in the 20th century, knowledge technologists are likely to become the dominant social—-and perhaps also political—-force over the next decades.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The next society" Economist.com (November 2001)
“In the 1950s, industrial workers had become the largest single group in every developed country, and unionized industrial workers in mass-production industry (which was then dominant everywhere) had attained upper-middle-class income levels. They had extensive job security, pensions, long paid vacations, and comprehensive unemployment insurance or "lifetime employment." Above all, they had achieved political power... Thirty-five years later, in 1990, industrial workers and their unions were in retreat. They had become marginal in numbers. Whereas industrial workers who make or move things had accounted for two fifths of the American work force in the 1950s, they accounted for less than one fifth in the early 1990s--that is, for no more than they had accounted for in 1900, when their meteoric rise began... By the year 2000 or 2010, in every developed free-market country, industrial workers will account for no more than an eighth of the work force. Union power has been declining just as fast... By the year 2000 or 2010, in every developed free-market country, industrial workers will account for no more than an eighth of the work force. Union power has been declining just as fast.”
Peter Drucker (1909–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source