Peter Drucker and Management

2Drucker the Social Theorist

DOI: 10.4324/9781003410485-3

Introduction

At heart, Drucker was a social theorist; it was only an accident of timing and circumstances that he began to write on the subject of management. Management was merely one element of Drucker’s larger theory of a functioning society of institutions, albeit a key element. Shaken by his personal experience in Europe of the 1920s and early 1930s, Drucker’s life work was devoted to developing a theory of society that would help prevent the resurgence of fascism. Drawing on his readings in political theory, philosophy, the social sciences and history, over time, Drucker crafted a framework for a tolerable, bearable society, one that would provide the individual freedom bounded ...