Peter F. Drucker Quotes on Ethics
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...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. -- The New Pluralism Leader to Leader, No. 14 (Fall 1999)
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...what's absolutely unforgivable is the financial benefit top management people get for laying off people. There is no excuse for it. No justification. This is morally and socially unforgivable, and we will pay a heavy price for it. -- A cantankerous interview with Peter Drucker, Wired (August 1996)
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I would hope that American managers--indeed, managers worldwide--continue to appreciate what I have been saying almost from day one: that management is so much more than exercising rank and privilege, that it is much more than 'making deals.' Management affects people and their lives. -- Managing in a Time of Great Change (1995)
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For the social ecologist language is not 'communication.' It is not just 'message.' It is substance. It is the cement that holds humanity together. It creates community and communication. ...Social ecologists need not be 'great' writers; but they have to be respectful writers, caring writers. -- The Ecological Vision (1993)
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An employer has no business with a man's personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance... Any attempt to go beyond that is usurpation. It is immoral as well as an illegal intrusion of privacy. It is abuse of power. An employee owes no 'loyalty,' he owes no 'love' and no 'attitudes'--he owes performance and nothing else. -- Management: Tasks Responsibilities Practices (1974)
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Communism is evil. Its driving forces are the deadly sins of envy and hatred. -- Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959)
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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)
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The major incentive to productivity and efficiency are social and moral rather than financial. -- The New Society (1950)
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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)
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Legitimate is a power when it is justified by an ethical or metaphysical principle that has been accepted by a society.
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[Management is] an integrating discipline of human values and conduct, of social order and intellectual inquiry, [a discipline that] feeds off economics, psychology, mathematics, political theory, history, and philosophy. In short, management is a liberal art...