Our love affair with government is over, although we keep the old mistress around.
Rarely has there been a more torrid political love affair than that between government and the generations that reached adulthood between 1918 and 1960. Anything anyone felt needed doing during this period was to be turned over to government—and this, everyone seemed to believe, made sure that the job was already done.
But now our attitudes are transition. We are rapidly moving to doubt and distrust of government. We still, if only out of habit, turn social tasks over to government. We still revise unsuccessful programs over and over again, and assert that nothing is wrong with them that a change in procedures will not cure. But we no longer believe these promises when we reform a bungled program for the third time. We no longer expect results from government. Who, for instance, believes anymore that changes in the foreign aid program of the United States (or of the United Nations) will really produce rapid worldwide development? What was a torrid romance between the people and government for so very long has now become a tired, middle-aged liaison that we do not know how to break off but that only becomes exacerbated by being dragged out.
ACTION POINT: Propose a program to your congressional representative that applies logic from the work of your enterprise to solve a social problem and that doesn’t require new government funds.
The Age of Discontinuity
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker