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巻頭

7

ドラッカーの先見性

Drucker’s Foresight

ドリス・ドラッカー

Doris Drucker

上田惇生訳
Translated by Atsuo Ueda

What special insight let Peter Drucker, born in 1909 and living almost his entire
life in the 20th century, predict social and political developments which would occur inthe 21st century?
He did not participate in systematic long-range trend watching, scenario
development or visionary design. He strongly disclaimed being a futurist – that is,
somebody who asserts that he can see things that do not exist as yet but might become
realities at some future date and in some other realm. A better name for him would be “aphilosopher of foresight,” unveiling a subject that has a high probability of becoming
visible at a future time.
One of Drucker’s favorite sayings was “To understand the future you have to inventit.” The future is unknown and unknowable, he explained. It is not a new territory likeMars that has existed long before us and is waiting to be explored. The future exists
only through us. we create it, and it is circumscribed by what we want or can realize init.
Drucker’s lifetime coincided with a period of growing expectations and what wecall economic progress, interrupted by one Great Depression and several more or lesssevere “bumps.” He was aware of the cyclical nature of life—the proverbial “sevenfat years” inevitably alternate with the “seven lean years” and he realized that the last
thirty years of the 20th century harbored the seeds of a slowdown, if not an outrightdownturn in the economic, political and social sphere. His view of what was ahead
was based not on fantasy, but on an analysis of the past and the present situation.
The crucial question is “what has already happened that is likely to influence thedevelopment in politics, economy and society?” Everything is in a state of constantchange, and subject to a variety of outside and sometimes controversial needs anddemands.
Drucker’s greatest contribution was to isolate the change agents, and their
qualification and quantification for social political arrangements. For him, the mostpowerful change agent was innovation, especially interdisciplinary innovationencompassing global trends, plausible scenarios, emerging market opportunities, andrisk management, to name but a few.
His interests were so manifold that it is impossible to do justice to all the innovative
aspects of his time which he discussed in his body of writing. I will focus here onjust one innovation which he deemed highly important and worthy of considerable
discussion: the rise of the knowledge worker. Throughout the 19th and part of the 20thcentury working meant working for oneself as a small tradesman or craftsman, with

いかなる洞察力のゆえに，20 世紀を生きた 1909 年生まれのピーター・ドラッ
カーが，21 世紀の社会と政治の行方を見通せたのか．
トレンド観測を行ったわけではない．シナリオや未来図の類を描いたわけでもない．もちろん，本人も断言していたように，どこかでいつか起こることを予測するだけの未来学者でもなかった．あえて言うならば，ピーター・ドラッ
カーとは，やがて誰の目にも明らかになるものの覆いを世に先んじて外してくれる先駆けの人だった．
ドラッカーは「未来を知る唯一の方法は，未来を創ることである」と言っていた．未来は分からない．分かりようもない．火星のように，ずっとそこに存在しつづけ，われわれの探索を待っていただけの存在ではない．未来が存在するのは，われわれを通じてのみである．それが存在するのは，それをわれわれが創るからである．それは，われわれが望み，われわれが現実とするものによって形作られるものである．
ドラッカーが生きた時代は，経済成長への期待と不況とが，ないまぜになった時代だった．好況と不況の 7 年が循環しつつ，20 世紀最後の 30 年に至っては，経済，政治，社会のいずれもが停滞した．そのような中にあってドラッカーは，過去と現在から未来を見通していた．
問題は，政治，経済，社会に重大な影響を与えることで，すでに起こったことは何かを知ることである．すべてのものが変化する．すべてのものが，外の世界から影響を受ける．
ドラッカーの最大の貢献は，それら変化の原因となるものを明らかにしていったことにあった．それらのもののうち，ドラッカーがとくに重視していたものが，グローバルなトレンド，ありうるシナリオ，現実化しつつある新たな需要，リスクの管理を踏まえた社会的なイノベーションだった．
ドラッカーの関心はあまりに広く，ここでそのすべてに言及することは不可能である．しかし，彼が最も重視していた変化の一つが，ほかならぬ知識労働者の興隆だった．
20 世紀の初めまで，労働とは，一人で行うかご主人のために行うものだった．
ドラッカーは『未来への決断』（1995 年）において，「仕事と労働力，社会と政治

8巻頭

a few employees or apprentices, or as a servant to a “master” or a “mistress.” In anarticle (“Transformation”) in the Atlantic Monthly of September 1994 Drucker assertedthat work and workforce, society and polity had now become totally different not only
from what they were in the first fifty years of the 20th century but also from anythingthat had existed at any other time of history. This social transformation, he predicted,
would have a lasting, if not permanent effect.
Blue collar workers became a minority, from 1980 on—not only as a percentageof the total of workers who were employed in the diverse industries but later also in
absolute numbers. Yet industrial production was growing faster than ever, in the UnitedStates and elsewhere.
For Drucker these numbers indicated a development which would affect social
structure, community, government, economy and politics. It was totally unprecedented,and the more so because the decrease in general workers was matched by a replacementof history’s traditional groups and the groups of industrial society by the knowledge
workers, a group which was fast becoming the largest single group (though, by nomeans, a majority) in the workforce and population of post industrial society in every
developed country.
Knowledge workers use their brain, rather than brawn, and there are vastdifferences in their working methods, their relations to their jobs and other work
related criteria. For example, manual work is highly visible, knowledge work is largely
invisible—it happens between people’s ears. Knowledge work focuses on the rightquestions, manual work focuses on the right answers. Knowledge workers need to betreated differently than manual workers – hence there will be unprecedented demands
on managers to change their traditional policies and practices. Knowledge workers
need to have formal education－they cannot learn through apprenticeship. The demands
on appropriate schooling and training is another new task for the 21st century—a primeexample of how a change in the composition of the workforce of the 20th century
requires planning for education in the 21st century.
Drucker’s seminal discourses on the knowledge worker are beyond the frame ofthis short essay, I mention them only as an example of his creative thoughts on changeand effect. I could have equally well described his various writings and speeches on,
say, the fading boundary lines between profit and non-profit organizations, or on thechanging relationship between international trade and investment or on demographics,
for instance on the skewed age composition of the workforce and how to turn problems
into opportunities. Anybody who is interested in previewing a likely picture of theworld in, say, 2050 and beyond will find ample references in one or the other ofDrucker’s books, for example “Managing for the Future,” “Managing in a Time ofGreat Change” or “The Changing World of the Executive.”
That picture will not be perfect: there are going to be large empty spaces. Drucker
did not look, for instance, at the development of information technology and especiallyof the Internet, nor was he greatly concerned with the diminishing energy resourcesand other troubling problems with which the world has to come to grips, the sooner
the better. Nevertheless there are enough aspects in Drucker’s analysis of socialand political markers which defined the 20th and 21st centuries to keep scores ofpractitioners and theorists busy for many years to come.

ドラッカーの先見性

9のすべてが，20 世紀前半のものとも，歴史上いかなる時代のものとも，まったく異なるものとなった」といった．
このとき彼は，この変化が，永久ではなくとも恐るべき長期にわたって人類の歴史に大きなインパクトをもたらすといった．すでに 1980 年には，肉体労働者は被用者人口の半数となり，やがて全労働者人口の半数を切ることが明らかとなっていた．しかもその間，製造業生産はあらゆる先進国において伸び続けた．
ドラッカーの目には，この変化が，社会の構造，コミュニティ，行政，経済，政治の在り方を根本から変えるものとして映った．それはまったく前例のない変化だった．こうして，到来したポスト産業社会において，最大の階層としての座を占めたのが，知識労働者だった．
知識労働者は肉体ではなく頭脳を使う．仕事の仕方も仕事との関係も肉体労働者のそれとは大幅に異なる．肉体労働は目に見えても，知識労働は目に見えない．それは頭の中での働きである．肉体労働は正しい答えに沿って仕事をする．知識労働は，正しい問いを求めて仕事をする．知識労働者と肉体労働者ではマネジメントの仕方が異なる．マネジメントの人間に求められることも異なる．知識労働者は，徒弟として覚えるものとは異質のものを正規の学校教育によって手にしなければならない．こうして，21 世紀は 21 世紀のための教育を必要とする．
知識労働者についての一連のドラッカーの論考は，この小論が扱いうるものではない．ここでは，変化とその結果についての彼の思考の例示という段階にとどまらざるをえない．
変化とその結果についての思考ということならば，たとえば，営利組織と非営利組織との境界の無意味化，通商と投資の関係の変化，人口構造の変化，就業者人口の構造変化がもたらす問題と機会などを取り上げてもよかったかもしれない．
2050 年あるいはそれ以降の世界の様相に関心を持つのならば，『変貌する経営者の世界』（1982 年），『未来企業』（1992 年），『未来への決断』（1995 年）が参考になるはずである．
もちろん，それらですべてが分かるわけではない．事実，空き地だらけといってよい．たとえば IT 革命とくにインターネット革命については論じ尽くしたとは到底いえない．世界のエネルギー資源の枯渇についても十分には論じていない．まもなく世界が直面することになる他の多くの重大な問題についても同様である．
しかしそれにもかかわらず，20 世紀と 21 世紀を規定する社会的政治的事象にかかわるドラッカーの分析には，多くの理論家と実践家が，今後長きにわたって取り組んでいくことになるものが豊かに配されているというべきである．