Drucker Peter. The Age of Discontinuity: Guidelines to Our Changing Society

Transaction Publishers, 1992. — 434 p. — ISBN 978-1560006183, 1560006188.The closing decades of the twentieth century have been characterized as a period of disruption and discontinuity in which the structure and meaning of economy, polity, and society have been radically altered. In this volume Peter Drucker focuses with great clarity and perception on the forces of change that are transforming the economic landscape and creating tomorrow's society. Focuses on the new forces that are creating tomorrow's society. These are the forces of discontinuity in the social, political and economic landscape. Essentially, Drucker asks the reader, «What must we do to shape tomorrow?».
Drucker discerns four major areas of discontinuity underlying contemporary social and cultural reality. These are: (1) the explosion of new technologies resulting in major new industries; (2) the change from an international to a world economy―an economy that presently lacks policy, theory, and institutions; (3) a new sociopolitical reality of pluralistic institutions that poses drastic political, philosophical, and spritual challenges; and (4) the new universe of knowledge based on mass education and its implications in work, leisure, and leadership.
Peter Drucker brings to this work an intimate knowledge and objective view of the particular and general. The Age of Discontinuity is a fascinating and important blueprint for shaping a future already very much with us.Introduction to the Transaction Edition
Preface to the 1983 Edition
Preface to the Original Edition
The Knowledge Technologies.
The End of Continuity.
The New Industries and Their Dynamics.
The New Entrepreneur.
The New Economic Policies.
From International to World Economy.
The Global Shopping Center.
Making the Poor Productive.
Beyond the "New Economics".
A Society of Organizations.
The New Pluralism.
Toward a Theory of Organizations.
The Sickness of Government.
How Can the Individual Survive?
The Knowledge Society.
The Knowledge Economy.
Work and Worker in the Knowledge Society.
Has Success Spoiled the Schools?
The New Learning and the New Teaching.
The Politics of Knowledge.
Does Knowledge Have a Future?
Conclusion.
Index.