Up and Away Into the Twenty-First Century : THE NEW REALITIES,<i> by Peter F. Drucker</i> ,<i> (Harper & Row: $19.95;288 pp.; 0-06-016129-9) </i>

As dusk settles on the 1980s, the landscape of the next decade appears eerily unclear. In America, debt and deficits seem out of control. The Soviet Union and China are wavering between openness and anarchy. Japan’s high-gear economy must now reckon with political upheaval in Tokyo. National pride is competing fiercely with the forces of economic integration in Western Europe. Latin American economics are unwinding in a downward spiral. Fast money and exotic deal-making are reshaping companies everywhere. It takes a bold commentator, indeed, to take aim at such moving targets. But Peter Drucker--one of America’s top business and social philosophers for nearly half a century--has set his sights high and he has scored some bull’s eyes.

“The New Realities” provides a strong, controversial and at times disturbing framework for thinking about changes in our society that are occurring right now. It is not meant to describe the 21st Century, nor is it a blueprint for survival or prosperity in the 1990s. It is not a technical analysis, nor is it a quick two-hour read. Instead, in conversational style, reminiscent of a simple but penetrating explanation that might be given on Ted Koppel’s “Nightline,” Drucker probes what’s going on in our lives and identifies with great skill some of the trends that are well below the surface of our everyday thoughts. In so doing, he continually raises questions about future policies in both the public and private arenas. These are unsettling questions, not only because Drucker, by his own admission, lacks answers, but also because he believes the issues themselves haven’t been well defined by society’s leaders.

For example, “The New Realities” discusses the changing perceptions about government in our society and the failure of national politics to keep pace. Few people believe that government has the capability to solve most of our problems, Drucker says, yet national politicians sound and act as if New Deals and Great Societies were still possible or desirable. The old antagonisms between management and labor, or between rural and urban groups have been replaced by single-purpose organizations in fields such as education, health care, or business. These groups are not fighting against one another but for themselves, says the author, yet politicians still campaign as if the old class confrontations exist.

When it comes to the outside world, Drucker gets behind current headlines about the ups and downs of Gorbachev. The fact is, he says, that the Soviet empire is in the last stages of decolonization, and what we are seeing is the breakup of the country into European and Asian parts. Yet no one in the White House or State Department is preparing for the revolutionary consequences. Another alleged blind spot in Washington: Although everyone is obsessed with too little or too much arms control, no one is really trying to rethink fundamentally the role of military power in an era when armies and advanced weapons have already proven to be expensive dinosaurs.

Drucker, whose worldwide reputation stems in part from his acute understanding of companies in changing environments, is at his best when discussing the world economy and the evolving culture of corporate and other organizations. Here he shows how national economics is shaped increasingly by global events and what it means for Washington’s policy making; how the movement of money across borders dwarfs in importance trade in goods and the implications for corporate management; and how real comparative advantage has far less to do with natural resources, the value of the dollar, or government subsidies but with how companies are organized and directed.

Drucker sees a need for addressing the new requirements of the “post-business” society. He describes a world of “knowledge workers” who exist in companies that are leaner and more specialized by product than the bloated industrial conglomerates that still color our views about big business. He identifies other groups, too, such as the nonprofit and volunteer sectors that embody everything from the Girl Scouts to “Meals on Wheels” to the American Lung Assn. According to Drucker, the drives and needs of these groups are different from the standard commercial venture. And because they involve more than half the working population, they are shaping our overall society in new ways that are, as yet, not understood.

At the base of “The New Realities” are two propositions. There is a crying need for new approaches to politics, economics and management. And, second, such innovation will have little to do with high-tech breakthroughs, but with changes in the way we define problems and organize ourselves for work. It is an intriguing perspective, although some chapters lack enough concrete examples or even colorful anecdotes--the kind found in so many of the author’s previous books--to rescue them from occasional vagueness. And although Drucker said at the outset that this was not a policy book, too often a fascinating explanation of a problem stops short of even a hint of what could be done to deal with it.

Drucker’s catalogue of new realities is also unbalanced. In most of this book, there is a sense that we are living in a world brimming with exciting new possibilities, if only we act intelligently. Fair enough. However, amidst a sweeping agenda that covers all manner of global and social issues, there is not a word about the growing underclass in American society--the adults, teen-agers and children mired in a world of drugs, guns, illiteracy, crumbling families. Drucker is preoccupied with the problems and prospects of society’s potential winners. But the more gruesome and deteriorating side of American life cannot be so easily defined away. For if current trends continue, that side may engulf all the others.