Peter F. Drucker on Business and Society

CHAPTER NINE

The American Genius Is Political

I

THE GENIUS OF the American people is political. The one truly saintly figure this country has produced, the one name that symbolizes the “fulfilled life” to most Americans, the one man whose very life was dedicated toward directing human activity on to a higher goal, was a politician: Abraham Lincoln.

The phrase which since early days expresses the essence of their own society to Americans is a political promise: the “equal chance of every American boy to become President.” One has only to translate the slogan—for instance, into a promise of “equal opportunity for every boy to become Prime Minister”—to ...