Customer Reviews

Post-Capitalist Society

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In Peter Druckers book, "Post Capitalistic Society", he identifies two types of workers: the service oriented worker and the knowledge worker. The knowledge worker produces magnitudes of scale more value to any organization. A knowledge worker represents the "Brains" of an organization. They know how to setup company infrastructure, keep it going, and improve upon its structure.

Capital is not as important as knowledge. Capital by itself does not create wealth, innovation, or increases to productivity. Knowledge produces ideas, innovations, efficiency, and productivity.

A knowledge worker can create a idea without capital, knowledge is brain power. Once the idea is realized, funders provide capital floods transforming the idea into process or product. Knowlege provides an incredible economic company potential. Remove the knowledge worker and growth stops, systems and processes stagnate. Reduce the number of service workers and operations become more efficient. Historically, as service workers number decrease their tasks and output have increased proportionate to their numbers. Basically, the service worker were expected to "Do More with less".

Knowledge represents the whole expertise in domains of finance, information, policy, management, etc.. The knowledge worker generates the "Ideas". Ideas are transformed into processes and systems. Its principles of creativity and credibility which provides trust in the idea. Drucker concludes that knowledge itself is profitable. In the post capitalistic society knowledge produces wealth. Knowledge increase productivity. The sum of knowledge in a domain increases productivity and growth exponentially. Its this radically breakaway phenomenia which knowledge produces providing wealth and growth to an organization.

The change to the Information Age is creating a new and powerful social class of knowledge workers, whose ability to apply knowledge to work will be the driving force in increasing productivity and innovation in the future.

Like the transformation from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, the transformation from a Capitalist Society to the Information Age is profoundly altering Worldview and values, political, and social structures, as well as key institutions and economic realities. This transformation will probably not be complete until 2010 or 2020, says Peter F. Drucker, a professor of Social Sciences at Claremont Graduate School. While we do not know yet what a post-capitalist society will look like, Drucker has tried in this book to chart out some of the ways that organizations and economics are changing now.

In the capitalist society, there are two social classes that dominate society, those who own and control the means of production, and the "workers" who make and move things. However, not very many people make and move things anymore, and their number gets fewer every year. This does not mean that the total production in developed countries has declined. In fact, total production of products and services has risen dramatically, but the number of people required to create these products has declined steadily. The capitalist factors of production, (capital, resources, and labor) are being superceded by the most basic economic resource; knowledge.

Value is now created by improving productivity and by innovation, tasks that require the application of knowledge to work. The leading social class of the future, says Drucker, will be knowledge workers who can put knowledge to practical use and work in organization with others on common goals. Improving productivity also depends on concentrating on tasks that increase the performance of specific goals. This means that tasks not central to the goals of an organization will be increasingly outsourced to specialized companies that can perform those tasks better.

Drucker is masterful in his integration of business, history and social sciences. This book covers technology, the rise of management and social trends. A great read - my only hesitation is where is the bibliography?

The thesis of the book is that Marx was wrong. The major owner of capital and thus companies are now pension and mutual funds. Thus workers - primarily knowledge workers now are the main owners of companies. There are a couple of flaws in his argument though.

The biggest winners in the current US stock market system aren't the pension funds - its managers and people who start companies or take them public. There is the rise of hidden perks to senior managment - stock options that are essentially free for the managers.

Drucker argues that this is all small peanuts compared with Morgan or Rockefeller.

Other points he makes:

1) Agriculture declined to 2-3% of the workforce. Manufacturing will see a similar declining to 10-15% of the workforce

2) Knowlege workers are more like members of an orchestra. The conductor could never replace the viola players.

3) He forecasts the decline in the Nation state. Governments are driven by pork barrel politics.

Perhaps reading this book from the vantage point of 2006 is a mistake, but I thought I'd enjoy Drucker's big picture thinking about the topic of the knowledge economy. Drucker's discussion of the rise of the knowledge worker in today's society was only a quarter of this book. This book is really a series of essays that lacked coherence as a whole. I would recommend "The Essential Drucker" instead, to the reader looking for a good compilation of Drucker's insights.

drucker understands the politico-economic realities that drive us all nuts, but he measures it up with magnanimity. the knowledge society--for a knowledge worker his description can actually be somewhat humbling. no more comparing yourself to the laborers as if you've risen above. you depend on others for your living and various forces work against you. i love the way drucker shrugs off government stupidity. he sees through all the hype and hubris, but neither complains nor lectures. ok, sometimes he's a bit dry or bombastic. the originator of the business book style, so cut him some slack.

I came to this book prepared to like it, and to perhaps learn some things about the present course of the much-touted global economy. Drucker is mentioned favorably in Peter Schwartz, "The Art of the Long View". It is disappointing to report this book is a poorly-written analysis, with shoddy documentation and vaguely-presented concepts. Drucker's point is that knowledge is now more important than capital or labor in today's western economies. To illustrate his points, he refers continually to earlier books he has written, or to earlier 20th century European writers. There are at least a dozen long citations, each taking up almost half the page, that are not attributed to any author. Do not check the bibliography, there isn't one! When Drucker presents his concepts, these are often shallow and self-obvious, for example, "Knowledge demands continuous learning because it is constantly changing " (p. 92). There are many excellent books published in the past few years analyzing the new global economy,

When I saw this book, I thought it would give real insight into the future of economics. Because I have a strong knowledge of economics and management theory, I found this book to be rather dry. The title seems to suggest a major change in the structure of economics. I would suggest a more appropriate title of this book would be, "An Aberrating Capitalism".

Drucker's theory is based on the idea that manual labor is declining. To replace it, people will have to have a knowledge needed by employers. In effect, they will be selling their knowledge to the employer. Gone are the industrialists like J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie. In there place are no-name managers, people of knowledge. The structure of the economy has certainly changed in the last hundred years. However, I am not sure the change is so drastic as to label the birth of a new capitalism. If Drucker wants to call this new era "Post-Capitalism", it is still "Capitalism" by definition.

I suspect this book is a useful tool for additional reading in college economics courses and advanced high school social studies courses. I found nothing about the book particularly enriching.

On April 15, 2006 the Collegiate Forum at Georgetown University held a talk on the future of labor policy in the United States and how to redistribute opportunity. Peter F. Drucker's book was cited by the discussion leader numerous times and I subsequently read it. Jonathan Fantini Porter, President of the Collegiate Forum at Georgetown University, lead the discussion and argued that the Bill Clinton Initiative and similar opportunity distribution policies, similar to the ones argued by the author, are the means to achieving a strong labor force in the United States.

Peter F. Drucker is a superb source for economic policies.

In spanish (Una gran descripcion de la transformacion socioeconomica de la sociedad de nuestro tiempo.Muestra con ejemplos concretos las nuevas realidades, sin entrar a profundizar en juicios de valor.)

One of my absolute favorites. Provides such a great foundation on Management from a Transnational standpoint. Great historical references and examples of the evolution of Management. His insight into "Knowledge" and "Service" workers is great. Kaizen and Social Responsibility are very important themes in my opinion. Gives a really great examples of different Management Teams. A must read for any entrepreneur. A very inspirational book.