The Age of Social Transformation by Peter F. Drucker
Critic Paper

Basically, this article of Drucker describes the rise and transformation of “knowledge society”.

The twentieth century has seen more common and radical social transformation than any other time in history, the labor and politics of the developed countries now are completely different in terms of processes, problems and structures from the past century.

In his article, in the first part of it, it is explained that the work-force, society and politics has change qualitative and quantitatively.

Changes occurred from the farmers and domestic servant. Before World War I, Farmers are the largest group compare to servants. Farmers and domestic servants were everywhere. After World War II, farmers are middle sized group but nowadays, farmers are only 5% of workforce and the servants are dead because of the rise of blue-collar worker. And from the rise to fall of blue-collar worker, the rise of knowledge worker occurred.

In the part of The Emerging Knowledge Society, formal education enables work & social position, education will become center of the society but the knowledge in application is effective only if it is specialized. Knowledge society is the organization that performs. The Employee Society, traditional work for a “master” but nowadays, the “boss” is an employee as well.
In the Social Sector, the traditional communities are family, village, and parish. And who takes care of social tasks? Not the government but a new social sector.

Furthermore, in the new Pluralism, social tasks are done by individual organizations and society becomes pluralist. Each institution is concerned only with one mission.

On my view about this article of Drucker, the age of social transformation is not yet over. We will not have a chance to resolve these new problems unless we first address the challenges posed by the developments that are already accomplished facts.

Knowledge workers are not the majority in the knowledge society, but they give it its character, its leadership, its social profile. And they are substantially different from any group which has occupied the leading position in the past.

The shift to knowledge-based work poses huge social challenges. Despite the factory, industrial society was still essentially a traditional society in its basic social relationships of production. But the emerging society, the one based on knowledge and knowledge workers, is not. It is the first society in which ordinary people—and that means most people—do not earn their daily bread by the sweat of their forehead. It is the first society in which “honest work” does not mean a rough hand. It is also the first society in which not everybody does the same work, as was the case when the majorities were farmers or, as seemed likely only forty or thirty years ago, were going to be machine operators.

If the shift to the knowledge society is to be as peaceful as the shift to the industrial society was, the key challenge will be managing the productivity of both groups of workers. The productivity of knowledge work will determine the competitive position of industries and countries.

This is far more than a social change. It is a change in the human condition.