What do you think?
Rate this book
The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism
In The End of Economic Man, long recognized as a cornerstone work, Peter F. Drucker explains and interprets fascism and Nazism as fundamental revolutions. In some ways, this book anticipated by more than a decade the existentialism that came to dominate the European political mood in the postwar period. Drucker provides a special addition to the massive literature on existentialism and alienation since World War II. The End of Economic Man is a social and political effort to explain the subjective consequences of the social upheavals caused by warfare. Drucker concentrates on one specific historical event: the breakdown of the social and political structure of Europe which culminated in the rise of Nazi totalitarianism to mastery over Europe. He explains the tragedy of Europe as the loss of political faith, resulting from the political alienation of the European masses. The End of Economic Man is a book of great social import. It shows not only what might have helped the older generation avert the catastrophe of Nazism, but also how today's generation can prevent another such catastrophe. This work will be of special interest to political scientists, intellectual historians, and sociologists. The book was singled out for praise on both sides of the Atlantic, and is considered by the author to be his most prescient effort in social theory.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
17 people are currently reading
538 people want to read
About the author
Peter F. Drucker
581 books1,991 followersPeter Ferdinand Drucker was a writer, management consultant and university professor. His writing focused on management-related literature. Peter Drucker made famous the term knowledge worker and is thought to have unknowingly ushered in the knowledge economy, which effectively challenges Karl Marx's world-view of the political economy. George Orwell credits Peter Drucker as one of the only writers to predict the German-Soviet Pact of 1939.
The son of a high level civil servant in the Habsburg empire, Drucker was born in the chocolate capital of Austria, in a small village named Kaasgraben (now a suburb of Vienna, part of the 19th district, Döbling). Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, there were few opportunities for employment in Vienna so after finishing school he went to Germany, first working in banking and then in journalism. While in Germany, he earned a doctorate in International Law. The rise of Nazism forced him to leave Germany in 1933. After spending four years in London, in 1937 he moved permanently to the United States, where he became a university professor as well as a freelance writer and business guru. In 1943 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He taught at New York University as a Professor of Management from 1950 to 1971. From 1971 to his death he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University.
The son of a high level civil servant in the Habsburg empire, Drucker was born in the chocolate capital of Austria, in a small village named Kaasgraben (now a suburb of Vienna, part of the 19th district, Döbling). Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, there were few opportunities for employment in Vienna so after finishing school he went to Germany, first working in banking and then in journalism. While in Germany, he earned a doctorate in International Law. The rise of Nazism forced him to leave Germany in 1933. After spending four years in London, in 1937 he moved permanently to the United States, where he became a university professor as well as a freelance writer and business guru. In 1943 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He taught at New York University as a Professor of Management from 1950 to 1971. From 1971 to his death he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 18, 2022
One day Peter Drucker, a Jew living in Germany while the Nazis rose to power heard a Nazi merchant of filth say to a crowd, "We do not want higher meat prices. We do not want lower meat prices. We want National Socialist meat prices!" That is the end of economic man and the rise of fascism now turned to right-wing populism. Totalitarians do not appeal to the head. Economic welfare means nothing to them. They appeal to the dark beast inside all of us who seek safety from freedom; freedom they label "chaos". Hitler was beloved because he promised the Germans pride in the community, not lower meat prices. "We spit on freedom!' fascists from Spain to Italy to Romania roared. The roar is here to stay. Pay no attention to dollars and sense when analyzing the wave of totalitarianism of today, from the USA to the Philippines; learn to decipher the cries of the misbegotten, wounded and humiliated. If the left doesn't capture their hearts the fascists will.
March 26, 2023
2023 reads, #22. I've only recently developed a new fascination for economic theorist Peter Drucker, because I only recently learned that he was the one who almost single-handedly proved that in a post-World-War America, the previous Henry Ford-derived theory about what makes a nation economically prosperous (that is, lots of humans combined with lots of factories, both of them thought as of a series of easily replaceable cogs in a giant machine) needs to be replaced with the concept of what he (and the rest of the world) would eventually call "knowledge workers," specialized and educated intellectuals whose main job is to oversee and improve the rapidly expanding series of automated machines quickly taking over the former jobs of "human cogs," leading to a new world of corporate offices filled with "white collar" workers (named literally after the starched white shirts and ties they wore to work, versus the factory workers' "blue collar" denim work shirts), doing what quickly became known as the defining job of the latter half of the 20th century, being "managers." (To give you an idea of how radical his theories were at the time, and how thoroughly they've since been adopted, consider the fact that Drucker himself was the creator of one of the first-ever "Masters of Business Administration" [or MBA] degree programs, something that seemed ludicrous to many at the time but has by now essentially become a requirement for anyone planning on having a career at a corporation.)
What's really fascinating about all this, though, is that Drucker actually started his career as a nerdy, abstract philosophy professor, and that his interest in economics didn't even begin until his alarm over the rise of fascist governments around the world in the 1930s. (Of course, it helped that Drucker was actually born and raised in Austria, the exact birthplace of the Nazi Party, leaving himself by fortunate coincidence in the early 1930s because of a business opportunity elsewhere in Europe, and never returning to his homeland again.) He knew that these authoritarian governments went directly against what at the time was the unquestioned assumption by the Enlightenment philosophers of the 1700s that humans were fundamentally rational beings (the "economic man" of this book's title), and that in all situations will act with scientific, predictable behavior to promote their own interests and always strive for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Fascism turns this theory on its head, which we can easily see by example in the newest crop of far-right radicals who have been threatening to take over our own country for the past 20+ years now; note for one example how many far-right people espouse the opinion (even if they don't necessarily say it this way out loud with these exact words, but rather demonstrate it through their actions) that they are perfectly fine with their own lives being destroyed, as long as it guarantees the destruction of the lives of their perceived enemies as well (or put another way, "I'm too busy trying to outlaw gay rights to worry about possible new laws that would make my own finances go better").
This is essentially a complete repudiation of what the Enlightenment philosophers argued, an argument that had become unquestioned by the 1930s when fascism became an international movement; and so Drucker started concentrating almost exclusively in his philosophical writings about this subject, on why fascism happens, what might happen in a society that would convince people to voluntarily act against their own self-interests, and what kind of society we might be able to create once the war was over that would end this kind of irrational self-destruction for good. And so I thought that would make it worthwhile to actually start way back at the very first book Drucker ever published, then move forward chronologically until finally reaching his famous books in the '50s and '60s on modern management that ended up having such a profound influence over the American business world at the time (or, well, eventually did -- an infamous part of the Drucker legend, in fact, is that he first got involved in the business world by being hired exactly by "human cog" companies like General Motors in the late 1940s to given them philosophy-based breakdowns of their companies and how they could improve their business practices, but his radical new ideas about entire companies that consisted only of 100% college-educated managers went down so badly with these elderly executives left over from the Victorian Age, all these first companies essentially ignored his conclusions, with for example the chairman of GM being so incensed that he declared that no employee was to ever mention the name Peter Drucker out loud in front of him ever again).
That had me starting this way all the way back with The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism, which to be clear doesn't have anything to do with business at all, other than Drucker's pleadings of "there's got to be a better way of running the world besides everyone hurtling towards self-destruction because at least it means the destruction of their enemies as well." Unfortunately, though, since this was written in the years 1936 and '37 and then published in '38, there's not really too much to this slim book that we don't now already know in detail about authoritarian societies and how they come about, with Drucker's tone mostly being in this book, "No, SERIOUSLY, I understand you think these Nazis are ridiculous cartoon characters that will come to nothing, but I assure you that they're just about to try to take over the world, and all your pretty little Enlightenment thinking about how the citizens of Germany wouldn't ever sign on to something so self-destructive is basically nonsense that can no longer be trusted in a 20th-century world." And so, while he was much more correct than any of us wish he would've been, this also doesn't make for very exciting or even illuminating reading by here in the 2020s, and I found myself sort of skipping around and just skimming a lot of this stuff about how "Germany's economy has tanked yet they all continue worshipping Hitler like a god for some strange irrational reason" (which, again, none of us in 21st-century America would know anything about whatsoever).
So, that has me moving on quickly to the first book he published after the war, 1946's Concept of the Corporation, basically his book-length conclusions about the year he spent as an embedded consultant inside GM with a VIP pass to all the proceedings, basically one of the first books to introduce the concept of "behavioral economics" (i.e. "sometimes humans act insane, and it's the modern business's job to prepare for it and then overcome it"), which like I mentioned went over with GM's executives like a lead balloon. (However, the book was a huge hit in post-war Japan, which inspired Drucker to go over there and start consulting in the early 1950s, one of the main reasons history saw the rise of mega-successful corporations there in the wake of their war loss and moment of national identity-searching.) Please keep an eye out for my review of that here in the coming weeks.
What's really fascinating about all this, though, is that Drucker actually started his career as a nerdy, abstract philosophy professor, and that his interest in economics didn't even begin until his alarm over the rise of fascist governments around the world in the 1930s. (Of course, it helped that Drucker was actually born and raised in Austria, the exact birthplace of the Nazi Party, leaving himself by fortunate coincidence in the early 1930s because of a business opportunity elsewhere in Europe, and never returning to his homeland again.) He knew that these authoritarian governments went directly against what at the time was the unquestioned assumption by the Enlightenment philosophers of the 1700s that humans were fundamentally rational beings (the "economic man" of this book's title), and that in all situations will act with scientific, predictable behavior to promote their own interests and always strive for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Fascism turns this theory on its head, which we can easily see by example in the newest crop of far-right radicals who have been threatening to take over our own country for the past 20+ years now; note for one example how many far-right people espouse the opinion (even if they don't necessarily say it this way out loud with these exact words, but rather demonstrate it through their actions) that they are perfectly fine with their own lives being destroyed, as long as it guarantees the destruction of the lives of their perceived enemies as well (or put another way, "I'm too busy trying to outlaw gay rights to worry about possible new laws that would make my own finances go better").
This is essentially a complete repudiation of what the Enlightenment philosophers argued, an argument that had become unquestioned by the 1930s when fascism became an international movement; and so Drucker started concentrating almost exclusively in his philosophical writings about this subject, on why fascism happens, what might happen in a society that would convince people to voluntarily act against their own self-interests, and what kind of society we might be able to create once the war was over that would end this kind of irrational self-destruction for good. And so I thought that would make it worthwhile to actually start way back at the very first book Drucker ever published, then move forward chronologically until finally reaching his famous books in the '50s and '60s on modern management that ended up having such a profound influence over the American business world at the time (or, well, eventually did -- an infamous part of the Drucker legend, in fact, is that he first got involved in the business world by being hired exactly by "human cog" companies like General Motors in the late 1940s to given them philosophy-based breakdowns of their companies and how they could improve their business practices, but his radical new ideas about entire companies that consisted only of 100% college-educated managers went down so badly with these elderly executives left over from the Victorian Age, all these first companies essentially ignored his conclusions, with for example the chairman of GM being so incensed that he declared that no employee was to ever mention the name Peter Drucker out loud in front of him ever again).
That had me starting this way all the way back with The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism, which to be clear doesn't have anything to do with business at all, other than Drucker's pleadings of "there's got to be a better way of running the world besides everyone hurtling towards self-destruction because at least it means the destruction of their enemies as well." Unfortunately, though, since this was written in the years 1936 and '37 and then published in '38, there's not really too much to this slim book that we don't now already know in detail about authoritarian societies and how they come about, with Drucker's tone mostly being in this book, "No, SERIOUSLY, I understand you think these Nazis are ridiculous cartoon characters that will come to nothing, but I assure you that they're just about to try to take over the world, and all your pretty little Enlightenment thinking about how the citizens of Germany wouldn't ever sign on to something so self-destructive is basically nonsense that can no longer be trusted in a 20th-century world." And so, while he was much more correct than any of us wish he would've been, this also doesn't make for very exciting or even illuminating reading by here in the 2020s, and I found myself sort of skipping around and just skimming a lot of this stuff about how "Germany's economy has tanked yet they all continue worshipping Hitler like a god for some strange irrational reason" (which, again, none of us in 21st-century America would know anything about whatsoever).
So, that has me moving on quickly to the first book he published after the war, 1946's Concept of the Corporation, basically his book-length conclusions about the year he spent as an embedded consultant inside GM with a VIP pass to all the proceedings, basically one of the first books to introduce the concept of "behavioral economics" (i.e. "sometimes humans act insane, and it's the modern business's job to prepare for it and then overcome it"), which like I mentioned went over with GM's executives like a lead balloon. (However, the book was a huge hit in post-war Japan, which inspired Drucker to go over there and start consulting in the early 1950s, one of the main reasons history saw the rise of mega-successful corporations there in the wake of their war loss and moment of national identity-searching.) Please keep an eye out for my review of that here in the coming weeks.
March 19, 2022
From the analysis of differences, it is argued that fascism (and indeed totalitarianism) is characterised by 1. the absence of constructive claims and the denial of everything; 2. the denial of legitimacy; and 3. the fact that the masses do not believe in it but continue to do so. It is believed that the necessary condition for totalitarianism is that there is no alternative (to think otherwise would be to lose legitimacy, reasonableness, a sense of togetherness), because the masses cannot "have nothing". Drucker argues that the reason for the German-Italian shape of fascism is that the "nation" is the end and bourgeois capitalism is only the means. The solution he proposes is also to find a new non-economic concept in a free and egalitarian society.112-116-119 The analysis of organisations and leaders shows the early work of the master of management.
Some uncertainties: 1. some concepts are too abstract (fascism; bourgeois capitalism); 2. many historical facts I cannot identify, so I will take my time to confirm them.
Some uncertainties: 1. some concepts are too abstract (fascism; bourgeois capitalism); 2. many historical facts I cannot identify, so I will take my time to confirm them.
May 24, 2025
Échelle personnelle:
5: Exceptionnel, change une vie
4: Très bon, se démarque parmi la compétition
3: Bon, demeure une expérience intéressante
2: Faible, mieux vaut éviter
1: Horrible, à éviter à tout prix
------------------------------------------
Si Drucker est demeuré une sorte de pape au sein du milieu du management, ses oeuvres ont été consciencieusement boudées par les politologues, ceux-ci ayant préféré garder une sorte d'omerta épistémique plutôt que de reconnaître la justesse de son analyse.
Parce que oui, le Drucker a pondu quelque chose d'exceptionnel en 1939, à savoir The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Si au tout début, l'exercice se voulait une certaine réponse à l'excellent livre d'Hannah Arendt, les Origines du Totalitarisme, il s'en est aussi très rapidement distancé. En effet, Drucker a vite préféré expliquer cette monstruosité du XXe siècle via les peuples et les mouvements sociaux qui ont épousé ces idéaux plutôt que par une approche idéationnelle telle que préférée à l'époque.
Et là, c'est la claque.
Parce qu'en remettant en question plusieurs éléments pourtant fondamentaux des grandes idéologies du XXe siècle (démocratie libérale, communisme et fascisme) par l'étude des mouvements sociaux, Drucker m'a fourni plusieurs pistes de réflexions à partir desquelles une thèse de doctorat pourrait s'écrire. Ainsi, aux questions que je traîne depuis les 15 dernières années dans mes études en sciences politiques et management (haha, un mini-Drucker), il est parvenu à éclairer ma lanterne quant aux:
A) raisons pour lesquelles les révolutionnaires communistes ont tous fini par faire "cou-couche panier" et sont devenus des syndicalistes cégétéistes;
B) obligations pour lesquelles les fascistes doivent vénérer la violence et l'idéal de la société en armes;
C) aux obsessions de l'Allemagne hitlérienne avec la questions juive (alors que leur présence est attestée depuis la période romaine)
Bref, Drucker couvre large, mais ouvre de nombreuses portes. À cause d'un style discursif très qualitatif, on aimerait qu'il apporte plus de données, plus de stats sur les faits qu'il avance. À cette époque, je peux comprendre les socialistes et autres gauchistes de s'être sentis "trahis" par un camarade intellectuel.
Or, pour évaluer de la scientificité d'une théorie, sa capacité explicative et prédictive sont deux atouts fortement appréciés. Pour avoir été capable de prévoir:
- l'alliance germano-soviétique, puis de sa trahison par Hitler;
- l'application de la Solution finale contre les populations juives d'Europe;
- la pérennité relative de la substitution des investissements par l'appauvrissement des classes populaires soviétiques;
- la crise de légitimité dans laquelle se retrouve la démocratie libérale... encore aujourd'hui;
- et tout plein d'autres particularités existentiellement angoissantes.
Je ressors ravis de ma lecture et j'encourage d'autre politologues, historiens et spécialistes des sciences sociales à creuser dans cet ouvrage. Certes, il n'est pas parfait. Entre un chapitre 4 qui, selon moi, mériterait à être revu et des chapitres 6, 7 et 8 qui sont des masterclass, ce bouquin est une pépite encore aujourd'hui.
5: Exceptionnel, change une vie
4: Très bon, se démarque parmi la compétition
3: Bon, demeure une expérience intéressante
2: Faible, mieux vaut éviter
1: Horrible, à éviter à tout prix
------------------------------------------
Si Drucker est demeuré une sorte de pape au sein du milieu du management, ses oeuvres ont été consciencieusement boudées par les politologues, ceux-ci ayant préféré garder une sorte d'omerta épistémique plutôt que de reconnaître la justesse de son analyse.
Parce que oui, le Drucker a pondu quelque chose d'exceptionnel en 1939, à savoir The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Si au tout début, l'exercice se voulait une certaine réponse à l'excellent livre d'Hannah Arendt, les Origines du Totalitarisme, il s'en est aussi très rapidement distancé. En effet, Drucker a vite préféré expliquer cette monstruosité du XXe siècle via les peuples et les mouvements sociaux qui ont épousé ces idéaux plutôt que par une approche idéationnelle telle que préférée à l'époque.
Et là, c'est la claque.
Parce qu'en remettant en question plusieurs éléments pourtant fondamentaux des grandes idéologies du XXe siècle (démocratie libérale, communisme et fascisme) par l'étude des mouvements sociaux, Drucker m'a fourni plusieurs pistes de réflexions à partir desquelles une thèse de doctorat pourrait s'écrire. Ainsi, aux questions que je traîne depuis les 15 dernières années dans mes études en sciences politiques et management (haha, un mini-Drucker), il est parvenu à éclairer ma lanterne quant aux:
A) raisons pour lesquelles les révolutionnaires communistes ont tous fini par faire "cou-couche panier" et sont devenus des syndicalistes cégétéistes;
B) obligations pour lesquelles les fascistes doivent vénérer la violence et l'idéal de la société en armes;
C) aux obsessions de l'Allemagne hitlérienne avec la questions juive (alors que leur présence est attestée depuis la période romaine)
Bref, Drucker couvre large, mais ouvre de nombreuses portes. À cause d'un style discursif très qualitatif, on aimerait qu'il apporte plus de données, plus de stats sur les faits qu'il avance. À cette époque, je peux comprendre les socialistes et autres gauchistes de s'être sentis "trahis" par un camarade intellectuel.
Or, pour évaluer de la scientificité d'une théorie, sa capacité explicative et prédictive sont deux atouts fortement appréciés. Pour avoir été capable de prévoir:
- l'alliance germano-soviétique, puis de sa trahison par Hitler;
- l'application de la Solution finale contre les populations juives d'Europe;
- la pérennité relative de la substitution des investissements par l'appauvrissement des classes populaires soviétiques;
- la crise de légitimité dans laquelle se retrouve la démocratie libérale... encore aujourd'hui;
- et tout plein d'autres particularités existentiellement angoissantes.
Je ressors ravis de ma lecture et j'encourage d'autre politologues, historiens et spécialistes des sciences sociales à creuser dans cet ouvrage. Certes, il n'est pas parfait. Entre un chapitre 4 qui, selon moi, mériterait à être revu et des chapitres 6, 7 et 8 qui sont des masterclass, ce bouquin est une pépite encore aujourd'hui.
July 22, 2012
実際に読んだのは次の翻訳本。
ドラッカー名著集9 「経済人」の終わり
P・F・ドラッカー(著)上田 惇生(翻訳)
著書がこの本を執筆した当時ドイツやイタリアでファシズム全体主義が支持されていた。この本は当時の視点でファシズム全体主義に関する洞察をまとめ、その終焉を予測したたものである。経済学の手法で、ブルジョワ資本主義、マルクス社会主義、全体主義、ファシズム全体主義のそれぞれを分析整理しファシズム全体主義を浮き彫りにしている。当時の人々が何故ファシズム全体主義政権を支持したか、ファシズム全体主義政権が何故そのような政策をとったかを各種背景とともに理解できたように思える。
この本を読み、社会の終焉予測は次２点をチェックするだけでも可能であることを知った。
・その社会は持続的なシステムであるか。
・その社会は合理的で論理的な組織によって営まれているか。
ドラッカー名著集9 「経済人」の終わり
P・F・ドラッカー(著)上田 惇生(翻訳)
著書がこの本を執筆した当時ドイツやイタリアでファシズム全体主義が支持されていた。この本は当時の視点でファシズム全体主義に関する洞察をまとめ、その終焉を予測したたものである。経済学の手法で、ブルジョワ資本主義、マルクス社会主義、全体主義、ファシズム全体主義のそれぞれを分析整理しファシズム全体主義を浮き彫りにしている。当時の人々が何故ファシズム全体主義政権を支持したか、ファシズム全体主義政権が何故そのような政策をとったかを各種背景とともに理解できたように思える。
この本を読み、社会の終焉予測は次２点をチェックするだけでも可能であることを知った。
・その社会は持続的なシステムであるか。
・その社会は合理的で論理的な組織によって営まれているか。
January 13, 2014
واحد من أهم الكتب في مجاله
آراء المؤلف في كيفية صعود النازية والفاشية في أوروبا وصناعة الأساطير حول الفوهرر هتلر هي من أجمل التحليلات السياسية والنفسية للتأثير المتبادل بين الشعب والقائد.. كل منهما يؤثر في الآخر، وتكون النتيجة هي إما المزيد من العدل والرشد أو المزيد من الطغيان وتأليه الحاكم المستبد
آراء المؤلف في كيفية صعود النازية والفاشية في أوروبا وصناعة الأساطير حول الفوهرر هتلر هي من أجمل التحليلات السياسية والنفسية للتأثير المتبادل بين الشعب والقائد.. كل منهما يؤثر في الآخر، وتكون النتيجة هي إما المزيد من العدل والرشد أو المزيد من الطغيان وتأليه الحاكم المستبد
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews