The New Realities.

Drucker's other recent book, The New Realities, describes "the concerns, the issues, the controversies" that we will all face for years to come. Foremost among these is the fact that we are increasingly a "knowledge society." This requires association executives to keep on learning and widening their perspectives.

Some of Drucker's other new realities include the following:

* There has been a shift from an international to a transnational world economy, which is shaped by the flow of money, rather than the trade of goods or services. * World development requires a free-market economy, not controls, subsidies, and protection of infant industries. * Today's professionals, called "knowledge workers," are resetting societal values in their view of business as a tool, not a way of life. Drucker observes that their values have to be balanced by the need for productivity and profit within individual businesses. * The new pluralism focuses on function, not power. One major new pluralism of "knowledge workers" has no significant interest in government but is devoted to social tasks, such as health care, schooling, and other apolitical activities. * Social responsibility is an extension of what an institution does, not a diversion. * Salvation will not come through government. According to Drucker, government should not do what nongovernment organizations can do as well or better. Drucker's alternative is privatization and less government. * A final new reality that is of special significance to associations is the development of volunteerism in nonprofit, nongovernment groups whose purposes are to change human beings from sick to well, from criminal to noncriminal, from helpless to independent, and so forth.

According to Drucker, the successful and growing nonprofit organizations apply management internally. "They work on making their government board effective. More and more of the third-section institutions are shifting their focus from the |good cause' to performance and accountability."