Well before his death, Peter Drucker had already become a legend. Over his 95 prolific years, he had been a true Renaissance man, and teacher of religion, philosophy and political science. But his most important contribution, clearly, is in business. What John Keynes is to economics, Druckers is to management.
In the 1980s Peter Druckers began to have grave doubts about business and even capitalism itself. He no longer saw the corporation as the ideal space to create community. In fact, he saw nearly the opposite, a place where self-interest had triumphed over the egalitarian principles he long championed. In both his writings and speeches, Druckers emerged as one of Corporate America’s most important critics. When conglomerates were the rage, he preached against reckless mergers and acquisitions. When executives were engaged in empire-building, he argued against excess staff and the inefficiencies of numerous "assistants to".
In a 1984 essay he persuasively argued that CEO pay had rocketed out of control and implored boards to hold CEO compensation to no more than 20 times what the rank and file made. He maintained that multi-million-dollar severance packages had perverted management’s ability to look out anything but itself. What particularly enraged him was the tendency of corporate managers to reap massive earnings while firing thousands of their workers. "This is morally and socially unforgivable," wrote Druckers, "and we will pay a heavy price for it. \