SHAPING THE FUTURE

...It is therefore important that public policy be directed to the maintenance of prosperity, even if this meant a long period of mild inflation—a small price, in his opinion, to pay for the great benefits of quickened production...

...Despite their genuine concert with human values, one feels that"sj third book needs to be written bj someone who feels quite strongly on these matters...

...Basing much of his argument on this fundamental hypothesis, Einzig goes on to say that automation is here to stay, and that the leading nations will have to adopt it or risk falling behind in world economic competition—something that would be tantamount to the loss of a crucial battle in the cold war...

...Neither Drucker nor Einzig completely neglects human values attainable in the future through automation and economic growth...

...This will not change under automation...

...We shall dump our precious resources at one end of an automatic machine, only to get, at the other, all the white-walled tires that underpaid and ung dertrained school-teachers need tqf ride on to their firetrap schools, antfe millions of cans of pressurized caK sup to squirt on billions of pre-cooked^ frozen, and tasteless dinners...

...would ask, indignantly, as Bernar^ Shaw once asked, why our economic system cannot put first things first Though we are rich in many futile things, such as over-horsepowered automobiles, we are still poor in schools and hospitals and in facilities for the care of the aged and mentally defective...

...Reviewed by John S. Gambs 'T'HESE two books throw long shad-ows of coming economic and political events...

...So long as the economy of the free world remains in its present mood of exuberance, the danger of unemployment through widespread automation is not great...

...The third author...

...He is concerned about the increasing dearth of water and of venture capital, about the population explosion and the inadequacies of our schools...

...In essence the thesis is this: when the manufacturer has adopted automation, he is tied to a continuous production schedule, for changes in it are too costly...

...He believes, however, that automation would exaggerate a slump if one should arise during the change-over period...

...He suggests problems of foreign and domestic policy arising out of current economic and demographic facts...

...That is why automation requires an economics of its own, Einzig believes...

...Indeed, for countries that are not willing to pay the price, or that refuse to adopt widespread automation, the penalty will be even greater...

...In America's Next Twenty Years Drucker restates a thesis first published elsewhere, which is accepted by Paul Einzig, a publicist who has made his home in England, as a basic proposition on the economics of automation...

...but if he tries to save himself by interrupting the cycle, he is also lost...

...Drucker sees a vast improvement in the status of the Negro in a society of expanding industrializatidn|| zig sees an appreciable decline-work accidents in automated * tories...

...And these are only two pies that have been selected frojijj among a larger number...

...Although Einzig would perhaps like to think of his book as the general economic theory of automation— or at least as a preface to such a theory—one is left, finally, with the feeling that he is talking primarily to Englishmen...

...To be left behind in the race will mean unemployment, partly because automated nations can, with low production costs, grab foreign markets away from the non-automaters...

...Drucker's short book is scarcely more than a catalog of emergent issues that will face the American people in the next two decades, from automation through inflation to zinc shortages...

...There are passages which could almost be described as an appeal to England to adopt automation at once as the means of retaining a high place among the great powers, and as an exhortation to its trades unions and employers to relinquish certain rights and privileges that stand in the way of an easy transition to a more highly-mechanized era...

...The general conclusion of the book is that though serious obstacles to smooth economic progress lie ahead, none is insurmountable if we apply our best intelligence to the shaping of the future...

...he must be sure of a stable, expanding market...

...Drucker is hopeful, but he has reservations...

...Once he has pushed the button, he must complete the whole cycle: if his market vanished he is, of course, lost...