AMERICA'S NEXT TWENTY YEARS

Drucker's bold look-ahead proceeds from many of the economic and engineering facts of life in present-day America. The grossest fact is babies- millions of them. The vast population increase will not for a time flood the labor market- but meantime the needs of these children will cause economic hardship to parents. Only through expanding productivity will the financial needs of these families be met- and this means that new types of "innovation" in social and industrial life must be found. The colleges will be under an immense stress, and Drucker is obviously interested in the problems of higher education and writes knowingly about them. The sweeping use of automation is not apt to reduce the labor need (though it will cause drastic shifts from one industry to another) nor will it lower the value of the employee. It will however further emphasize the role of higher education, and it will promote the smaller businesses which can more readily handle specialized operations that are too limited to warrant automation. The future will see America becoming a have not nation; this is the grimmest fact to be faced. Iron, oil, and countless other vital raw materials no longer are inexhaustible. America must then compete for them at the cost of international goodwill. Drucker concedes nothing to the intervention in the American economy of new sources of energy or new synthetic materials. But on this stand, he is persuasive and stimulating, and writes with clarity and force.