Management and 1984 — for ill or well?

1984 will be, presumably, post‐Bullock, post‐devolution, post‐North Sea oil euphoria; and by then the productivity, growth, and economic indicator curves will either be post‐catastrophic or will have shown some turn for the better. By 1984 EEC will be a reality, even for the conservative insular English. But, at the moment, questions abound. Will England's biggest trade rival in 1984 be Scotland? Will the return on North Sea oil, or the improved balance of payments position, have enabled British industry to have been retooled and rejigged? What, by then, will be the balance of the mixed economy? Will it be much as now; or shall we, by then, have moved so much nearer the East European bloc? Will overall productivity have improved to bring us somewhere near the levels of our industrial competitors? Will small and beautiful have won the day over big and ugly? Shall we have identified the most profitable and the most necessary developments requiring priority investment? What will be the technological eggs in our basket that we shall be most expectantly awaiting to hatch? There are plenty of questions.