In the 1940s, during the war, Professor Karl Polanyi (Austrian of Hungarian origin) published The Great Transformation; work that deals with the relations between the State and the market, participating in a controversy that continues to this day.
On the acknowledgment page, Polanyi mentions the young journalist Peter Drucker, who "despite disagreeing with the author's results was a source of constant encouragement." Polanyi held the need for a regulated capitalism, Drucker favored a freer market.
The war had been the cause by which an important generation of European intellectuals emigrated to the United States, Drucker was part of that brilliant pleiad. His humanistic training and vast culture made it possible for him to promote the development of administrative disciplines, whose incipient theories were closely linked to the engineering vision of its founders.
Drucker's first work was The End of Economic Man (1939) where he talks about the substitution of economic motives for the military heroism that the totalitarian currents proclaimed at that time.
The first work in the field of administration in Latin America was La gestión de Empresas, written in 1954 and published in Spanish years later. The classic question "What is our business, and what should it be?" Previously, in 1940, in the work Concept of corporation, he had exposed the bases of administration by objectives.
Effective Management is published in Spanish in 1966, there the author warns readers that it is a "practical" book, anticipating criticism from those who do not usually understand that - as Kant said - there is nothing more practical than a good theory.
Drucker's concerns are not limited to the field of administration. Already in 1954 we were able to see his book The New Society where he deals with the importance of organizations, and the relations of the State, companies and unions. Later, in 1969, he returned to the subject in The Age of Discontinuity, where he spoke of changes in the global economy.
Finally, in 1993 he speaks of Post-capitalist society, a work in which he focuses his attention on the emergence of the knowledge society.
Throughout his career, Drucker was always ahead of his time, just remember his work on turbulent contexts or on the design of organizations such as strategic business units and the virtual corporation, although mentioning them in different terms.
Drucker's style is clear and dynamic, and the clarity of his expositions can leave the inexperienced reader with the idea that he is faced with a simplistic theory or, on the contrary, that the nature of the questions he addresses is too simple. However, their conclusions are the fruit of numerous observations obtained through systematic research and consulting. He is also cautious when making predictions. This is precisely a behavior that, according to Bertrand Russell, differentiates scientists from political and religious preachers.
