The New Pluralism -- Peter F. Drucker full-text article
The New Pluralism -- Peter F. Drucker full-text article
Society in all developed countries has become pluralist and is becoming more pluralist day by day. It is splintering into a myriad of institutions each more or less autonomous, each requiring its own leadership and management, each having its own specific task.
But all earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. [Note: India an exception??? though taking care of common good a big problem]
The only exceptions to the universal centralization of power that we mean when we talk of modern society existed in the English-speaking world and especially the United States. Religious diversity, especially in the United States, maintained a substantial sphere of pluralism, and out of this then grew the uniquely American independent college and university, the equally uniquely American nongovernmental hospital, and so on. But even in the United States the trend ran strongly toward centralization in which one political institution, the government, has a monopoly on power whereas society itself consists of very large numbers of independent individual or small enterprises, each with considerable freedom but without any power.
the task-centered and autonomous institution is the only one that performs. Performance requires clear focus and narrow concentration. Multipurpose institutions do not perform. The achievements of the last 150 years in every single area are achievements of narrow focus, narrow concentration, and parochial self-centered values. All performing institutions of modern society are specialized.
Society in all developed countries has become pluralist and is becoming more pluralist day by day. It is splintering into a myriad of institutions each more or less autonomous, each requiring its own leadership and management, each having its own specific task.
But all earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. [Note: India an exception??? though taking care of common good a big problem]
The only exceptions to the universal centralization of power that we mean when we talk of modern society existed in the English-speaking world and especially the United States. Religious diversity, especially in the United States, maintained a substantial sphere of pluralism, and out of this then grew the uniquely American independent college and university, the equally uniquely American nongovernmental hospital, and so on. But even in the United States the trend ran strongly toward centralization in which one political institution, the government, has a monopoly on power whereas society itself consists of very large numbers of independent individual or small enterprises, each with considerable freedom but without any power.
the task-centered and autonomous institution is the only one that performs. Performance requires clear focus and narrow concentration. Multipurpose institutions do not perform. The achievements of the last 150 years in every single area are achievements of narrow focus, narrow concentration, and parochial self-centered values. All performing institutions of modern society are specialized.
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