118 quotes
And no matter how serious an environmental problem the automobile poses in today's big city, the horse was dirtier, smelled worse, killed and maimed more people, and congested the streets just as much.
MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973)
Political freedom is neither easy nor automatic, neither pleasant nor secure. It is the responsibility of the individual for the decisions of society as if they were his own decisions--as in moral truth and accountability they are.
The Future of Industrial Man (1942)
It is not enough for the economist in a free society to be a good economic craftsman; he must also think and act as a citizen.
An Economist Looks At the Peace (1945)
The world economy is not yet a community--not even an economic community...Yet the existence of the "global shopping center" is a fact that cannot be undone. The vision of an economy for all will not be forgotten again.
The Age of Discontinuity (1969)
The subordinate's job is not to reform or reeducate the boss, not to make him conform to what the business schools or the management book say bosses should be like. It is to enable a particular boss to perform as a unique individual.
Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992)
It has been said, and only half in jest, that a tough, professionally led union is a great force for improving management performance. It forces the manager to think about what he is doing and to be able to explain his actions and behavior.
MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973)
Capitalism is being attacked not because it is inefficient or misgoverned but because it is cynical. And indeed a society based on the assertion that private vices become public benefits cannot endure, no matter how impeccable its logic, no matter how great its benefits.
The Practice of Management (1954)
Profit is not a cause but a result-
MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973)
No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil.
Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959)
Never underrate the boss! The boss may look illiterate. He may look stupid. But there is no risk at all in overrating a boss. If you underrate him he will bitterly resent it or impute to you the deficiency in brains and knowledge you imputed to him.
Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992)
The large industrial enterprise is... the representative institution of an industrial society. It determines the individual's view of his society.
The New Society (1950)
The fundamental reality for every worker, from sweeper to executive vice-president, is the eight hours or so that he spends on the job. In our society of organizations, it is the job through which the great majority has access to achievement, to fulfillment, and to community.
The Practice of Management (1954)
...all earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. They abounded in communities but could not sustain community, let alone create it.
[T]he ‘total state’ of fascism is not a political alignment within the existing political and social setup, but that it is a revolution which, like all revolutions, works from without.
The End of Economic Man (1939)
For if this country—or any other of the great powers—were to make its defense program a function of its domestic employment situation, it would become impossible to conduct a constructive and well-thought out foreign policy or to develop any lasting collaboration.
Concept of the Corporation (1945)
Tomorrow everybody - or practically everybody - will have had the education of the upper class of yesterday, and will expect equivalent opportunities. That is why we face the problem of making every kind of job meaningful and capable of satisfying every educated man.
Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959)
[T]he Western European democracies... will be forced into totalitarianism unless they produce a noneconomic society striving for the freedom and equality of the individual.
The End of Economic Man (1939)
The individual needs the return to spiritual values, for he can survive in the present human situation only by reaffirming that man is not just a biological and psychological being but also a spiritual being, that is creature, and existing for the purposes of his Creator and subject to Him.
Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959)
The company is not and must never claim to be home, family, religion, life or fate for the individual. It must never interfere in his private life or his citizenship. He is tied to the company through a voluntary and cancellable employment contract, not through some mystical or indissoluble bond.
The Practice of Management (1954)
It does not follow from the separation of planning and doing in the analysis of work that the planner and the doer should be two different people. It does not follow that the industrial world should be divided into two classes of people: a few who decide what is to be done, design the job, set the pace, rhythm and motions, and order others about; and the many who do what and as they are told.
The Practice of Management (1954)