America's Next Twenty Years
Summary
Drucker published this short book in 1957 as a set of forecasts about the United States over the following two decades, based on trends he considered already determined.
His method is the distinctive part and the one he applied throughout his career: identify changes that have already occurred but whose consequences have not yet appeared. Demography is his primary tool, because the number of people in each age cohort twenty years ahead is already known.
The forecasts he made from this included a labour shortage arising from the low birth cohorts of the 1930s reaching working age, followed by the pressure of the postwar birth cohorts entering education and then employment; the resulting expansion of higher education, which he identified as the coming mass institution; the shift of the workforce from manual to what he later called knowledge work, and the consequent transformation of what education and management had to accomplish; the growth of pension funds and the fact that they would become the dominant owners of American corporations; the coming pressure on the automobile industry and on American manufacturing; and the changing position of American agriculture.
The book was published early enough that its accuracy on several points, particularly on higher education, on knowledge work and on pension fund ownership, is genuinely striking.
It is very short and dated in its specifics. The value now is methodological, as a demonstration of forecasting by identifying consequences of changes that have already happened rather than by extrapolating trends or predicting events. Drucker returned to this method repeatedly and stated it more fully in later work.
Key takeaways 7
- Useful forecasting identifies the consequences of changes that have already occurred rather than predicting new events.
- Demography permits genuine forecasting because the size of each age cohort twenty years ahead is already determined.
- The low birth cohorts of the 1930s would produce a labour shortage as they reached working age.
- Higher education would become a mass institution rather than remaining a minority experience.
- Work would shift from manual to knowledge-based, which would change what education and management must accomplish.
- Pension funds would become the dominant owners of American corporations, which Drucker identified decades before it was discussed.
- Trends already visible in one part of society appear later in others, which is what makes early observation useful.
Who should read it
Readers interested in forecasting method who want a demonstration of predicting from already-determined changes rather than from extrapolation.
About Peter F. Drucker
Management writer and consultant; professor at Bennington, NYU and Claremont Graduate University
He invented management as a field of study, and The Practice of Management and The Effective Executive remain the primary sources every later writer builds on.
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