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The beliefs that Government interferes with individual freedom and that private and public goods are competitive appear to be the two major reasons for man′s aversion to paying taxes. In reality, however, especially from a socio‐economic viewpoint, government also increases individual freedom, and the acceptance of necessity is as much an ingredient of good life as the attainment of freedom. Furthermore, private goods and public goods are as complementary as they are competitive. Thus, compared with the main‐ stream neoclassical economist, the social economist has a more complete understanding of the actual human condition and, in so doing, he can provide better solutions to the problem of man′s hostility to paying taxes.

The world is witnessing the commencement of a new revolution ‐ the information revolution. Like all other revolutions before it, the information revolution will have cataclysmic effects on human history. Already the revolution has transformed the world into a global village where information is produced, transmitted and exchanged from remote locations in a matter of seconds. Business applications of the Internet are also improving the economies of various countries. However, for Africa, the information environment is still underdeveloped and is thus creating impediments to the participation of the continent in the information revolution. This paper discusses this environment and offers suggestions for Africa’s participation in the world’s fourth revolution.

The purpose of this paper is to address the root causes of rising imbalances in the US economy. There is the view that the dominance of the liberal economic philosophy among the American decision makers and business elite resulted in marginalization of the role of the economic government. As a result, the US economy is facing problems in many sectors and might be poorly prepared to face the challenge of globalization in the knowledge‐based industries.

The paper provides review and critique of the contemporary literature of “declininists” proclaiming the end of the American Empire.

In order to restore the strength of the US economy and utilize its potential, Americans must consider a new generation of politicians and legislators capable of reforming the tax system, stepping up the supervision of the financial sector, eliminating inequality in education and reforming the electoral system.

America is at a turning point. The problems of the American economy are home‐made, but their implications are international. In the last two decades the USA pursued a dysfunctional dual dependence on imports of manufactured goods and capital. Allowing the dollar devaluation has been a short‐sighted policy which will have dire consequences on import‐dependent economy and the USA's position in the world economy. Liberal prescriptions of self‐regulating markets cannot replace long‐term government economic strategy which America badly needs today.

Since the liberal wishful‐thinking failed, economists, politicians and legislators should stop evoking conservative liberal mantras and start working on responsible economic policy solutions before the US economy plunges into a deep recession and years of damaging pessimism.

Rather than repeating arguments of the authors proclaiming the end of American Empire, the paper looks for chances and opportunities for the US economy's rejuvenation in the future.

Current orthodoxy in management text and training is the human resource management model which has its origins in the excellence and quality models of US business writings. Investigates the failure of “Jurassic management”: visioning, consensus value systems, proactively created teams, and development planning. Just as Jurassic Park failed, so will self‐managing schools and colleges unless they recognize that certain management development programmes are leading them into disaster. Argues that organizations should not be seeking stability with the environment and meeting the needs of customers, but should be creating the environment and celebrating professional competence. Shows that Chaos Theory can be applied to educational institutions in order to identify that survival in turbulent times is based on the capacity of educational managers to make rather than control the future. Management development is at a critical point whereby the choices will create the future: the key learning outcome from Chaos Theory is that self‐organization and micropolitics are essential to understanding organizational survival and development.

Education is the main training grounds for citizenship. With the decline of military conscription, it has the mission of instilling a sense of national civic consciousness (see Janowitz's, 1983, critique; also Merle, 2010). But it also inculcates world cognitive perspectives as well. Hence, “global citizens” emerge. They carry much larger macro frames of reference that go beyond the nation-state. This change adds another layer of complexity to national identity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the question: What shall we measure? and offers preliminary answers. Data for innovation management and policy must be valid, reliable, relevant and actionable.

The paper examines trends within finance, environment and institutions and society, all with regard to innovation and technology. It examines how these trends interact with each other and with measurement of innovation and socio-technical change.

In the future, measurement for innovation policy must occur in markedly different ways – and on quite different scales – than is currently the practice. The paper concludes with a future-oriented list of items to be measured, with preliminary guidelines on how to organize to measure them.

Foresight researchers must put new emphasis on measurement.

Local and national statistical agencies will have to measure new indicators and organize differently to measure them.

Voters may be eager to embrace principles and goals, though they fail to find excitement in the more tedious issues of measurement. It is incumbent on us to pay more attention to measurement, to resist governments’ and lobbyists’ efforts to introduce special-interest bias into public statistics, and to carry the story to the public of the importance of measurement. Much of the policy change that is now needed is needed because of past and current harmful human behaviors. Nicholas Sarkozy (Press 2011) concisely stated the rationale for this paper: “We will not change our behavior unless we change the ways we measure”.

This concept paper goes beyond other indexes and proposals to identify new phenomena that must be measured. In contrast to other works which are oriented to measurement-push (toward policy), the present paper makes bold assertions about the trends needing to be addressed by policy, then proposes measurement based on policy-pull. It argues against premature worldwide statistical standards, and for Popperian “multiple engineering experiments”.The USA must “get back into the future business” – President Bill Clinton, at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2012.

We recall Sidney Greenstreet's profile of Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon: ‘Upon my soul sir, you are a character, you really are.’ The same might be said of Gorby, the leader of the second most powerful country in the world, whose stated philosophy over seventy years has been: profit is a moral evil.