The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition

Couverture
Peter Drucker
Routledge, 8 sept. 2017 - 466 pages

Periods of great social change reveal a tension between the need for continuity and the need for innovation. The twentieth century has witnessed both radical alteration and tenacious durability in social organization, politics, economics, and art. To comprehend these changes as history and as guideposts to the future, Peter F. Drucker has, over a lifetime, pursued a discipline that he terms social ecology. The writings brought together in The Ecological Vision define the discipline as a sustained inquiry into the man-made environment and an active effort at maintaining equilibrium between change and conservation.

The chapters in this volume range over a wide array of disciplines and subject matter. They are linked by a common concern with the interaction of the individual and society, and a common perspective that views economics, technology, politics, and art as dimensions of social experience and expressions of social value. Included here are profiles of such figures as Henry Ford, John C. Calhoun, Soren Kierkegaard, and Thomas Watson; analyses of the economics of Keynes and Schumpeter;and explorations of the social functions of business, management, information, and technology. Drucker's chapters on Japan examine the dynamics of cultural and economic change and afford striking comparisons with similar processes in the West.

In the concluding chapter, "Reflections of a Social Ecologist," Drucker traces the development of his discipline through such intellectual antecedents as Alexis de Tocqueville, Walter Bagehot, and Wilhelm von Humboldt. He illustrates the ecological vision, an active, practical, and moral approach to social questions. Peter Drucker summarizes a lifetime of work and exemplifies the communicative clarity that are requisites of all intellectual enterprises. His book will be of interest to economists, business people, foreign affairs specialists, and intellectual historians.

 

Table des matières

The American Genius Is Political
5
Calhouns Pluralism
15
The Last Populist
33
Vision for Tomorrow
47
The Myth of American Uniformity
59
Introduction to Part
75
The Poverty of Economic Theory
95
The Delusion of Profits
105
India and Appropriate Technology
299
The First Technological Revolution and Its Lessions
305
Part Six The InformationBased Society
315
Introduction to Part Six
317
Information Communications and Understanding
319
Information and the Future of the City
339
The InformationBased Organization
345
Part Seven Japan as Society and Civilization
359

Economics as a Magical System
119
Introduction to Part Three
135
The Problems of Success
153
Managements New Dimension
177
Introduction to Part Four
193
The New Productivity Challenge
215
The Emerging Theory of Manufacturing
233
The Hostile Takeover and Its Discontents
249
Part Five Work Tools and Society
273
Introduction to Part Five
275
Work and Tools
277
Technology Science and Culture
287
Introduction to Part Seven
361
A View of Japan through Japanese Art
363
The Problems of Success
381
Behind Japans Success
397
Misinterpreting Japan and the Japanese
411
How Westemized Are the Japanese?
417
Part Eight Why Society Is Not Enough
423
Introduction to Part Eight
425
The Unfashionable Kierkegaard
427
Reflections of a Social Ecologist
441
33
459
Droits d'auteur

Autres éditions - Tout afficher

Expressions et termes fréquents

À propos de l'auteur (2017)

Peter Drucker

Informations bibliographiques