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It is difficult to get an adequate account of human needs but there are known needs which, for hundreds of millions of people, are not met. Can the present economic system meet them? Can any economic system meet them? Is simple economic growth the answer? The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the questions, emphasizing the problems and paradoxes.

The paper looks at India where poverty is rampant despite recent gains, and at Bhutan which ranks low in economic production but quite high on the “happiness scales”. It also looks at questions of the relation of economic inequality to social problems, citing recent studies.

The paper focuses on how well the world's economic systems address, or fail to address, human needs.

This paper is written by a philosopher and writer on social economics (and Editor of International Journal of Social Economics (IJSE )) who works in a variety of fields: metaphysics and its epistemological relations, the theory of the history of philosophy (focusing on the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries), and moral, social, and economic philosophy and their relations to culture and religion. The paper then introduces the papers in this special issue of the IJSE devoted to human needs.

Men make war; women make peace. Men make war; women make children. Men make war because women make children. Because men make war, women make children. Women make peace because they make children.

Presents the full text of the Presidential Address by Stafford Beer to the Triennial Congress of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics, New Delhi, India, January 1993. Introduces the components of contemporary change and discusses the diagnostic approach of management cybernetics. Outlines a summary theory of autonomy and considers autonomy at the global level. Offers an account of the cybernetics of chronic societary triage, developing an analysis of triage through category A, B and C partition. Produces a summary theory of team syntegrity and discusses the power and the use of the team syntegrity model. Finally, outlines an action plan for World Syntegration.

Except that there is a more intense international situation the circumstances in which we open our twenty‐first volume differ but little from those in which we commenced the twentieth. The War, which has been the cause of so many hopes and fears for libraries and librarians, still drags its disastrous length across the world, thwarting and stifling all those activities for the advancement of mankind of which libraries are part, but the specific attacks upon educational institutions of all kinds have lost their original force; indeed there has been, as every reader of this magazine knows, a rejuvenesence of educational ideals and energy in spite of the baffling obstacles of the time. In almost every municipality libraries have regained much of their former position, and evidences of development have been many. These have been recorded in our pages regularly month by month, with such criticism from ourselves as the occasions seemed to demand; and in relation to suoh progress THE LIBRARY WORLD has endeavoured to pursue a catholic and progressive policy, examining every new idea frankly, and sympathetically whenever it has been possible to do so. Our pages have been open freely to the expression of all phases of library thought, even in cases where our own views did not coincide with the writers. That policy we shall endeavour to continue, welcoming contributions from all who feel that they have something to say to the profession, in the belief that even impracticable schemes and untenable theories have a value of their own if they cause librarians to think anew in contesting them. It is, at the best, a difficult time for professional journals, and for few more than it is for library journals. Cost of production, the obsession of librarians with definitely war‐work, and the absence of more than half of the permanent workers in libraries, are causes which need no elaboration. The mortality amongst our contributors in the great cause has been considerable, and most painful to us. The fact that in spite of all these difficulties our circulation has steadily increased gives us reason to believe, with all modesty, that THE LIBRARY WORLD plays a definite and useful part on behalf of librarians. In thanking those who have supported us, we can add the assurance that our best efforts shall be expended in promoting and sustaining the interests which the magazine was intended to serve.

Before the appearance of our next issue, the Annual Meeting of the Library Association will have taken place. In many ways, as indicated last month, it will be an interesting meeting, largely because it is in the nature of an experiment. International conditions, the state of national and municipal finance, the absence of library workers with the colours, and the omission of social events, all tend to influence its character. It is possible, however, that these very circumstances may increase the interest in the actual conference business, especially as the programme bears largely upon the War. The programme itself is formidable, and it will be interesting to see how the section on the literature of the war, for example, will be treated. Probably the Publications' Committee have in mind the book symposia which are a feature of the meetings of various library associations in the United States. These consist of a few minutes' characterisation, by an opener, of a certain book or type of literature, and a discussion after it. The experiment was attempted in London last year at one of the monthly meetings, but owing to a misapprehension the speaker gave an excellent lecture on Francis Thompson of more than an hour's duration, when he had been expected to give a brief description of Francis Meynell's biography of that poet. If any gatherings for a similar purpose are arranged, we hope the speakers will be primed sufficiently to avoid that error. As for social events, their omission is less likely to be felt in London than anywhere else in the Kingdom. London is a perennial source of social amusement in itself, and the evenings can readily be filled there—“chacun à son goût”—really better than by attending pre‐arranged gatherings.

In the early 1840s Edward Gibbon Wakefield's New Zealand Company recruited “emigrants of the labouring classes” promising: “every one of them who is industrious and thrifty, may be sure to become not merely an owner of land, but also in his turn an employer of hired labourers, a master of servants.” Letters sent “Home” to Ham (a village in Surrey, UK) from Wellington between 1841‐1844, by a group of labouring families, project textual personae consistent with this liberal image. The purpose of this paper is to explore educational processes involved in the production of these colonial identities.

The letters are read in relation to archival resources: the curriculum of the National School and alternative educational models in Ham, records of schools provided in Wellington, and pedagogical intentions signalled in the records of the New Zealand Company.

Arguing that migration resulted in a radical change in the subjectivity of these labouring class families, this paper contrasts the curricula of the “National School” attended by these children in Ham with the more secular offerings in Wellington. Their “National School” taught Ham's lower orders to accept their God‐given “stations” in life. Radical critique was suppressed. In Wellington the first schools, such as the Mechanics’ Institute, were non‐denominational, prioritising practical knowledge. Foundations for a secular society based on liberal values were laid.

There is little educational research on how participation in the Wakefield scheme transformed those who, in rural England, were required to remain subservient members of the power orders, into the enterprising independent subjects required in the new colony.

The success of the European Union is without comparison. With the inclusion of the European Free Trade Association, as well as much of Eastern Europe (a likely inevitable event by the turn of the century) it will have a population, GNP, economic and political force second to none among the world′s great powers. The tripartite NAFTA between the USA, Canada and Mexico may be only the precursor to a North American Common Market. Countries in the Pacific are taking notice of these economic pairings and wondering what they might have to do to compete against either or both. The inevitable conclusion to these two Common Markets appears to be efforts towards the creation of a Pacific Rim Common Market (PRCM). Examines the factors behind the success of the European Common Market, compares them with the present situation in the Pacific Rim, provides a set of prerequisites necessary before a successfully operating PRCM can develop, offers several alternatives to what an eventual PRCM may look like, and discusses the current likelihood of a PRCM. Concludes that any PRCM must include the USA to offer balance and offset potential Japanese economic hegemony. The likelihood for a PRCM in the near future is dim, owing to immense differences between the potential member nations and the lack of experience in working together for mutual, regional interests instead of national interests.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate and ascertain the effects of integrative motivation on the willingness to participate in boycott activities.

This paper uses a mail survey to examine the relationships among six constructs in a boycotting issue context, in order to explore Chinese consumers' willingness to boycott against Japanese products or services with the fallout from a Japanese former PM's continuous visits to a controversial war shrine since 2001.

The findings suggest that there are significant and positive pairwise relationships between boycott participation and three factors (i.e. animosity, efficacy, and prior purchase). High animosity towards Japanese goods and the other two constructs, at the high end of the attitude spectrum, increase the level of willingness to engage in consumer boycott practices.

Consumer boycotts are a worldwide and historic phenomenon in modern society. As the number of protests grows and as local authorities recognize the economic and political impact of such activities, then multinational companies (MNCs) and host countries begin to see the historic and cultural perspective of these events in addition to the conventional consumer behaviour perspective. To enable boycotting to become less harmful, MNC management need to understand what makes local consumers so affronted. The results of the evaluation can potentially be generalized towards a strategic analysis of the boycott model in other hostile market situations.

The findings of this paper offer pivotal implications for decision makers and the management of those Western multinational enterprises who are concerned with increasing their share of the world's largest consumer market. In particular, Japanese MNCs need to pay much more attention to the oppressed and potentially explosive emotion of animosity as the legacy of past conflicts (i.e. war, economic, political, etc.) between Japan and China.