Kyaw Win - Their Views, Their Sayings

Peter E. Drucker

Post-capitalist society

This passage is from Peter E. Drucker's 1994 book, "Post Capitalist Society." A change in the introduction that I think sums up the meaning of the entire book.

(The Transformation) is an introduction to the 75th edition of "Drucker's" book, translated and excerpted from it.

If we look at the history of the West in general, we can see that every few centuries, there are profound changes. Each time this happens, the worldview, the basic values, the social and political structures, the culture, the arts, and the main institutions of a society are all reshaped within a few decades. In this way, after 50 years, a new world has emerged that has nothing to do with the old. In this new situation, the new generation of young people who have to become people in a new world, the old era, the old world, where their parents were born and raised, where their grandparents lived, is so disconnected that it is impossible to even imagine the old era, the old world.

In the modern world, such a great change is happening at a rapid pace. In fact, we are all going through a great process of change. As we go through this process, capitalism as we know it will be left in history. What we are all looking forward to is a post-capitalist society.

Landmarks

Looking back in history, we see that this kind of change occurred once before in the 13th century. At that time, most European societies were centered in the newly emerging “cities.” “Guilds” of merchants and artisans emerged in the cities and became the dominant social force. On the economic side, “long-distance trade” flourished. New forms and styles developed in painting, sculpture, and architecture. In education, rural monasteries were replaced by the early universities of urban areas. On the religious and cultural side, the “Dominicans,” the followers of “Saint Dominic,” and the “Franciscans,” the followers of “Saint Francis,” emerged in parallel. In terms of language, it moved from "Latin" to various dialects, and in terms of literature and art, it could be called the "age of Dante."

After 200 years, another major change occurred. Between the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1455 and the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther in 151, there were more than 60 years. Between 1400 and 1500, there was a Renaissance, which reached its peak in Florence and Venice. The rediscovery of ancient art and culture, the discovery of America, the emergence of the Spanish infantry, the first standing army since the Roman legions, and the emergence of mathematics based on Arabic numerals were notable milestones. Thus, after 1520, a new era began that left the entire Middle Ages behind.

The next change could be said to have been born in 1576. It was also the year in which the American War of Independence broke out, and the steam engine of the Great War was put into operation. Moreover, Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was published in this same year. The great change that began in 1576 lasted for 50 years, culminating in the Battle of Waterloo. During these 40 years, the Industrial Revolution emerged and the first modern universities were established. These decades also saw the birth of modern ideologies such as capitalism and communism. In other words, it was a major change that shaped modern European culture. Thus, from 1820 onwards, a new landscape called "modern capitalism" began to emerge.

Two hundred years later, we are faced with another major change. This time, the “sphere” of change is no longer limited to Western society. The tide of history has gone beyond the West and has reached the global level. There are various proposals for determining the origin of the current change. Some believe that it was around the 1960s, when a non-Western country, Japan, became an economic power. Others point to the computer that sent information to a central location. In my own opinion, I think we should consider the “American Bill of Rights” (American G.1 Bill of Rights) of cops: copsza: that came out after World War II. This law required American servicemen to be financially supported to attend university. This could be considered the beginning of a shift towards a knowledge society.

If history is any guide, the current changes are likely to continue until the year 2000 or 2020. Yet the political, economic, and social changes in the world are already underway. In short, we are halfway through a major transformation.

Distorted capitalism

A few decades ago, when we heard the term “post-capitalist society,” most people would have understood it as the socialism that Marxism had envisioned. Now, history has proven the fate of Marxism. Yet capitalism itself has not remained an immovable pillar of stability. The progress of most developed countries has significantly exceeded the scope of traditional capitalism.

Traditional capitalist society is dominated by two social classes. The "capitalists" who own and control the means of production, and the workers, whom Marx described as "the propertyless." When Marx was alive, the condition of the workers was one of material deprivation, with nothing to sell but their labor. However, after Marx's death (1883), a somewhat loose middle class developed as a result of the "Productivity Revolution." This continued to develop, and the condition of the workers in the industrialized countries reached its highest point after the Second World War. By the 1950s, the industrial working class had become an important force in the political life of developed countries. However, with the "Management Revolution" gaining momentum around the 1960s, the position of the blue-collar worker, both in terms of numbers and In terms of importance, however, it has declined. By the year 2000, blue-collar workers accounted for only about one-sixth or one-eighth of the total workforce in all industrialized countries.

The peak of the development of the traditional capitalist class was even earlier. The heyday of the traditional capitalist class began at the beginning of the 20th century (more precisely, before the First World War). Since then, there have been no more capitalists who could control everything, such as Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie Ford in the United States, Simon, Thyssen, and Krug in Germany, or Kundt, Lever, Vickers, and Armstrong in Britain. Since the end of the Second World War, these monopolistic capitalists have been replaced by the “professional managers” born of the management revolution. Today, there are no modern figures occupying the front pages of the media. However, they are not capitalists who own the means of production, but Even though they get very high salaries and bonuses, they are only employees. They are only white-collar workers.

In the United States in particular, most of the country's capital is not in the pockets of one or two capitalists, but rather in the stock market. More than half of this circulating capital is pension funds. The real owners of these pension funds are not capitalists, but employees. If, according to Marxism, the essence of socialism is that the workers own the means of production, then the most socialist country in the world is the capitalist elite, the United States.

What I want to say here is that the two main forces of traditional capitalism, the workers (blue-collar workers) and the capitalists (owners of productive capital), are declining from their original positions. They

Those who have gradually come to the forefront and replaced them are the "knowledge workers" and "service workers" who make a living from education.