
The New Society
The Anatomy of Industrial Order
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Book Description
In The New Society, Peter Drucker extended his previous works The Future of Industrial Man and The Concept of the Corporation into a systematic, organized analysis of the industrial society that emerged out of World War II. He analyzes large business enterprises, governments, labor unions, and the place of the individual within the social context of these institutions. Although written when the industrial society he describes was at its peak of productivity, Drucker's basic conceptual frame has well stood the test of time.
Following publication of the first printing of The New Society, George G. Higgins wrote in Commonweal that "Drucker has analyzed, as brilliantly as any modem writer, the problems of industrial relations in the individual company or 'enterprise.' He is thoroughly at home in economics, political science, industrial psychology, and industrial sociology, and has succeeded admirably in harmonizing the findings of all four disciplines and applying them meaningfully to the practical problems of the 'enterprise.'" This well expresses contemporary critical opinion.
Peter Drucker's new introduction places The New Society in a contemporary perspective and affirms its continual relevance to industry in the mid-1990s. Economists, political scientists, psychologists, and professionals in management and industry will find this seminal work a useful tool for understanding industry and society at large.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Preface
Part 1: The Industrial Enterprise
1. The New Social Order
2. The Enterprise in Modern Society
3. The Anatomy of Enterprise
4. The Law of Avoiding Loss
5. The Law of Higher Output
6. Profitability and Performance
Part 2: The Problems of Industrial Order: The Economic Conflicts
7. The Real Issue in the Wage Conflict
8. The Worker's Resistance to Higher Output
9. The Hostility to Profit
Part 3: The Problems of Industrial Order: Management and Union
10. Can Management Be a Legitimate Government?
11. Can Unionism Survive?
12. Union Needs and the Common Weal
13. The Union Leader's Dilemma
14. The Split Allegiance Within the Enterprise
Part 4: The Problems of Industrial Order: The Plant Community
15. The Individual's Demand for Status and Function
16. The Demand for the Managerial Attitude
17. Men at Work
18. Is There Really a Lack of Opportunity?
19. The Communications Gap
20. Slot-Machine Man and Depression Shock
Part 5: The Problems of Industrial Order: The Management Function
21. The Threefold Job of Management
22. Why Managements Don't Do Their Job
23. Where Will Tomorrow's Managers Come From?
24. Is Bigness a Bar to Good Management?
Part 6: The Principles of Industrial Order: Exit the Proletarian
25. Labor as a Capital Resource
26. Predictable Income and Employment
27. The Worker's Stake in Profit
28. The Threat of Unemployment
Part 7: The Principles of Industrial Order: The Federal Organization of Management
29. "The Proper Study of Mankind Is Organization"
30. Decentralization and Federalism
31. Is a Competitive Market Necessary to Management?
Part 8: The Principles of Industrial Order: The Self-Governing Plant Community
32. Community Government and Business Management
33. "Management Must Manage"
34. The Worker and His Plant Government
35. Plant Self-Government and the Union
Part 9: The Principles of Industrial Order: The Labor Union as a Citizen
36. A Rational Wage Policy
37. How Much Union Control Over the Citizen?
38. When Strikes Become Unbearable
Conclusion: A Free Industrial Society
Epilogue