[the masses] ...must turn their hopes toward a miracle. In the depths of their despair reason cannot be believed, truth must be false, and lies must be truth. 'Higher bread prices,' 'lower bread prices,' 'unchanged bread prices' have all failed. The only hope lies in a kind of bread price which is none of these, which nobody has ever seen before, and which belies the evidence of one's reason. -- The End of Economic Man (1939)
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- When reason and economic reality fail the masses, they turn to irrational hope and belief in impossible miracles.
- In plain terms
- Desperate people stop trusting reason and hope for impossible solutions.
- What can you take from it?
- Desperation can drive people to reject logic in favor of unrealistic hopes.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Why do people believe in impossibles during crises?
- How does despair affect rational thought?
Another view
It generalizes the behavior of all masses without acknowledging individual agency.
More from Peter F. Drucker
Fascism is the result of the collapse of Europe's spiritual and social order. ...catastrophes broke through the everyday routine which makes men accept existin…
Permalink to quote #69 Management is doing things right, Leadership is doing the right things!
Permalink to quote #71 Capitalism as a social order and as a creed is the expression of the belief in economic progress as leading toward the freedom and equality of the individual i…
Permalink to quote #68
Related quotes
The majority is always sane.
Larry NivenLarry Niven quote #29 It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the u…
Gilbert Keith ChestertonGilbert Keith Chesterton quote #70 Prejudice, egotism, hatred, contempt, disdain, are the enemies of truth and progress.
Robert G. IngersollRobert G. Ingersoll quote #180