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The need to anticipate the state of the market for the next few decades calls for excellent judgement rather than clairvoyance (although that would help too) and an ability to read the signs of the times. The buzz has already gone round that we are heading for a post industrial revolution, and even the tabloids have to take the threat of an energy crisis seriously now. So where does this leave the retailer and his diminishing returns? In this paper we turn to the experience of the Americans. They too are learning to live with recession, and it seems that some people are even making a fast buck out of it — how fast, in terms of how long these new retail operations will last, is another question brought into play. But certainly, the analysis of a faltering economy and the changing face of the consumer are of great interest. This paper was presented at the CIES Congress in Montreal.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the “ethics and transparency‐accountability” paradox in which the oft‐repeated mantras of ethical luminosity, such as transparency and accountability, appear designed to assure one that all is well when such confirmation is, possibly, no more than part of an illusion – a superficiality purporting to confirm that what is seen is the only reality of public ethics.

Utilizing an analytical approach based on the comparative analysis of historical and contemporary isomorphisms this paper suggests that despite post‐modern voices about fracture, the multiplicity of “realities” and possible futures, there still remains an almost paradigmatic conviction that “visibility” is politically more efficacious than “invisibility.” Rendering situations visible supposedly exposes violations of ethical standards, professional norms and protects one from “criminogenic” elites. This paper questions whether light always cast out darkness and whether “Dark Times” demand relentless transparency?

This paper finds that constructing “realities” has always involved a manipulation of what is seen and not seen – what is real and what is illusionary. “Shadows” and “disorder” are also important in understanding how visibility, invisibility and ethics are parts of the pervasive apparatus of political and economic hegemony. This paper also finds that the translucence of accountability policies, supposedly encompassing the pillars of professional propriety/integrity, might be encompassed within Offe's “procedural ethics”.

The social implications of this paper involve the development of a public administration able to calibrate whether the fluxing of visibility/invisibility/ethics is constructive or destructive of social capital and legitimacy.

This paper concludes that a public administration solely focused on transparency not only misdirects attention and political resources, but also is actually self‐defeating, leaving citizens less informed and more subjugated than before.