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Proposes two concepts for the empirical analysis of society‐nature interrelations: first, socio‐economic metabolism – the material and energy flows between societies and their natural environment and second, the colonization of nature – the sum of deliberate interventions into natural systems aimed at their “improvement” with respect to socio‐economic goals. Discusses empirical examples for sustainability indicators, focusing on landscape processes, and relates land use to the analysis of material and energy flows.

As civilisations become more advanced and complex from an economic perspective, the need to integrate and co‐ordinate human behaviour and institutions becomes more acute. The chief co‐ordinating devices are not government laws or regulations enacted to compel conformity and dependability in socio‐economic relationships, but the standards sometimes embodied in laws, more often outside the legal framework of government and properly so. Such standards, arrived at by voluntary consensus or common consent, are far too numerous, too complex, too widely and diversely applied to be amenable to codification into statute law or centralised systems of administration.

Society is considered as a large system and, therefore, the inevitable planning of its development as a whole must be such that the focus is on the interaction: nature — man — society. The following topics will be discussed: The participation and coordination of natural and social sciences in the formation of the future of the human society, in general, and of various given social systems in particular; the most important reasons favouring the systems approach to socio‐economic planning; the consideration of the whole planning — action feedback cycle, i.e. the simultaneous planning of both large wholes and their parts alongside the continuous coordination of interests and goals at various levels of management in the economy as well as in the whole society (the so‐called convergence planning); three levels of the development plan of any economic system (the technical, the economic and the social plan of development and their unity. Technical, economic and social proportions in the process of development); the relationship of development policy planning and the technology of planning (development policy planning as a general social activity. Optimality of the planning system).

The purpose of this paper is to explore socio-economic implications of decentralized autonomous self-owned businesses.

The authors take the approach of a case study analysis.

Unlike dark scenarios according to which almost half of our jobs are at risk in the wake of new emerging technologies such as AI and Blockchain (Frey and Osborne, 2013), the authors envision a world of decentralized autonomous self-owned businesses, using the example of the taxi market. The authors, first, outline their characteristics and how they work. Second, they elaborate on the socio-economic implications of markets where this novel kind of business enters. Third and most important, the authors argue that so-called robo-economic systems would be tantamount to a post-capitalistic society that is enforced by applying capitalistic principles.

The presented scenario of this paper is very futuristic and furthermore reduces a complex system quite drastically to be able to focus on the two implications of interest. Therefore, we are confronted with the necessity to take assumptions on socio-technical feasibilities and individual preferences. Most of these assumptions can be challenged (see Section 6.3).

The scenario presented by the authors stands in contrast to the fear that increased automation inherently leads to increased inequality. There is a general debate going on whether automation and digitalization will lead to a massive loss of employment, because machines will replace humans in many fields of work. Frey and Osborne (2013) estimate that nearly every second job is at risk to disappear in the coming decades because of computerization. Hence, many people fear to be left behind because of this development and inequality will increase tremendously as only those who own the machines will benefit directly from the profit share. In the scenario, however, the profits are mostly distributed among the consumers via reduced prices.

The proposed scenario seems to reconcile socialism (less private property) with liberalism (a radicalization of markets) and shows an effective way to tackle market power, the problem that certain persons and firms would benefit almost exclusively from the increased profit margins promised by automation.

This register of current research in social economics has been compiled by the International Institute of Social Economics. The register does not claim to be comprehensive but is merely an aid for research workers and institutions interested in social economics. The register will be updated and made more comprehensive in the future but this is largely dependent on the inflow of information from researchers in social economics. In order to facilitate this process a standardised form is to be found on the last page of this register. Completed forms, with attached sheets as necessary, should be returned to the compiler: Dr Barrie O. Pettman, Director, International Institute of Social Economics, Enholmes Hall, Patrington, Hull, N. Humberside, England, HU12 OPR. Any other comments on the register will also be welcome.

The concept of sustainable development used in this paper is one of generating and maintaining development as a process through the interactions between social and economic forces. On the side of the social factors influencing development, the focus here is on the human element, which is variously displayed in the process concept. Sometimes, this factor is simply the human resources treated as technologically induced capital, and in which case, the generation of growth is seen as attainment of efficiency derived from the use of human capital. But the more important human factor in sustainable development is the establishment of social justice, moral entitlement and endogeneity of ethics as cause and effect in the process itself. These factors emanate from the premise of human self‐actualization in various ways, and they augment the development process by increasing returns to knowledge as an indigenous experience. Thus, ethics and morality in development constitute the sustaining factors of a development paradigm that becomes truly authentic, not imposed. Among the scenarios of such ethical and moral elements of development is the endogenous role of Islamic values towards describing its socio‐scientific world view.

This paper argues that extractivist logic creates the environmental conditions that produce “natural” hazards and also the human conditions that produce vulnerability, which combined create disasters. Disaster Risk Creation is then built into the current global socio-economic system, as an integral component not accidental by-product.

As part of the movement to liberate disasters as discipline, practice and field of enquiry, this paper does not talk disasters per se, but rather its focus is on “extractivism” as a fundamental explanator for the anthropogenic disaster landscape that now confronts us.

Applying a gender lens to extractivism as it relates to disaster, further highlights that Disaster Risk Management rather than alleviating, creates the problems it seeks to solve, suggesting the need to liberate gender from Disaster Risk Management, and the need to liberate us all from the notion of managing disasters. Since to ‘manage’ disaster risk is to accept uncritically the structures and systems that create that risk, then if we truly want to address disasters, our focus needs to be on the extractive practices, not the disastrous outcomes.

The fundamental argument is that through privileging the notion of “disaster” we create it, bring it into existence, as something that exists in and of itself, apart from wider socio-economic structures and systems of extraction and exploitation, rather than recognising it for what it is, an outcome/end product of those wider structures and systems. Our focus on disaster is then misplaced, and perhaps what disaster studies needs to be liberated from, is itself.

Attempts to find answers to such theoretical questions as the character of Soviet‐type societies and the major tendency of their development. Argues that, as long as the analysis is conducted in convenient and extreme terms of “either capitalism or socialism or communism”: as long as the yardstick for the comparison remains capitalism of laissez‐faire; and as long as the general trend and the particular forms of the world economic development are ignored ‐no satisfactory answer to the nature and fate of such societies can be found. If, however, one looks at Soviet‐type systems as socio‐economic and political structures destined to solve the problem of the industrial revolution and modernization of backward and peasant nations under the conditions of the twentieth century, then the enigma disappears. Soviet‐type societies become what they are in reality: a variety of capitalism that, having fulfilled the “archaic” act of industrialization, is moving into its post‐industrial era.

In the first part of this article the authors constructed an empirical model of the management control problem using cybernetics and general systems theory to “order” a variety of literature from management science and organization theory. This second part extends the empirical model to consider propositions relating to the design of information‐for‐control systems of socio‐economic enterprises. The paper concludes by transforming the empirical model into a set of “observables” that involve a range of measuring instruments.