THE NEW SOCIETY

A provocative, interesting book — a non-Utopian, workable politi-economic model for our present-day industrial society which examines economic, governmental and social aspects of industrial enterprise and presents the author's theories of the desired threefold function of enterprise. Mass production, which has divorced the worker from production and the family unit from society, requires a new industrial society, so Mr. Drucker believes, and he here proposes realignment in the thinking and power of management, labor and the plant community itself. He first considers the distinguishing characteristics of industrial enterprise, its anatomy and laws of profitability and higher output, and then describes labor's rejection of these laws. Part III deals with the conflict of labor and management, the illegitimacy of management as government, the union leaders' dilemma, and the problem of split allegiances. Sections four and five treat the function of the plant community, the need of the worker for status in the industrial order, and the management function, how and why and wherein it has failed. The final sections offer the author's solutions and principles of industrial order:- labor should be considered as a capital resource, entitled to a predictability of income and employment, with a stake in profits. For management he recommends decentralization and federalism. For the plant community, self government. And for labor unions, the responsibilities of citizenship. With most of the recommendations the author has practical, sound plans for action, and he analyzes each problem with clear, incisive commonsense. A text that bears out Drucker's proved clarity of thinking in previous methods of presentation of ideas by charts and diagrams.