Peter Drucker Quotes
This society in which knowledge workers dominate is in danger of a new "class conflict" between the large minority of knowledge workers and the majority of workers who will make their livings through traditional ways, either by manual work...or by service work
The labor unions and other employee organizations were oriented to the industrial worker originally, and then the teachers and other government employees unions. But the new technology and knowledge workers are not attracted to the same kinds of unions and there is a schism between kinds of workers.
Peter Drucker, Management Expert, Managing in a Time of Great Change, 1995
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
One problem critics have with his argument is that while there is always work to be done, there are not always entities willing to pay for the additional work. Gains in productivity will justify investment in more rapid deployment of technology; thus entities in society are will to invest the funds. But if there is no visible economic return from the additional work, corporations and taxpayers may be unwilling to fund it leading to massive unemployment and instability.
There were by then few jobs left in the American economy that did not require fundamental literacy and most required post secondary education as well.
The nation was divided over the issue of immigration. Many observed that the vast majority of the immigrants—especially the illegal immigrants performed jobs for which American workers could not be hired. Opponents like the congressman, claimed that if better wages were paid Americans would be doing the jobs, and as long as there were immigrants who would work for low wages, there was little reason for employers to pay more.
Technology has always displaced and replaced workers, but most industrial technological breakthroughs, in the long run, have created new jobs and better paid ones. What worried Gompers did not appear to materialize in his lifetime, but actually became and issue on the later years of the 20th century and the early 21st century where the computer the robot, and the sophisticated software began to replace workers at a faster rate than new opportunities were created. Gompers was one of the harbingers of things to come.
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We think of jobs being eliminated when technology is employed as a modern problem. But here, in 1936, automation was eliminating jobs rapidly. One fascinating difference is that Mrs. Roosevelt observes that the laborers jobs are eliminated and the high school and college graduates can run the enterprise. 75 years after this quotation, the jobs of the high school graduates were being eliminated and some higher education was necessary for most jobs. As technology improves, the workers who are necessary require more and more education.
His 50 year prediction was a little too optimistic although a large percentage of the routine, and some non-routine, jobs had become automated especially in the automobile and other manufacturing arenas, and many other fields. But there were still some other jobs that were still being done without machines in 2014. Asimov was essentially right but a little early in his timing.
Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an Austrian management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of management education, he invented the concept known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as "the founder of modern management".
