Kenneth E. Boulding Quotes - Page 4

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• Because of his capacity for abstract communications and language and his ability to enter in imagination into the lives of others, man is able to build organizations of a size and complexity far beyond those of the lower animals.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Communication, Animal, Men

  "The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society". Book by Kenneth E. Boulding, 1956.

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• The troubles of the 20th century are not unlike those of adolescence -- rapid growth beyond the ability of organizations to manage, uncontrollable emotion, and a desperate search for identity. Out of adolescence, however, comes maturity in which physical growth with all its attendant difficulties comes to an end, but in which growth continues in knowledge, in spirit, in community, and in love; it is to this that we look forward as a human race. This goal, once seen with our eyes, will draw our faltering feet toward it.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Eye, Maturity, Feet

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• Conventions of generality and mathematical elegance may be just as much barriers to the attainment and diffusion of knowledge as may contentment with particularity and literary vagueness... It may well be that the slovenly and literary borderland between economics and sociology will be the most fruitful building ground during the years to come and that mathematical economics will remain too flawless in its perfection to be very fruitful.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Years, Perfection, Contentment

  "Samuelson's Foundations: The Role of Mathematics in Economics". Journal of Political Economy, Volume 56, June 1948.

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• Political conflict rests to a very large extent on a universal ignorance of consequences, as the people who are benefited by any particular act or policy are rarely those who struggled for it, and the people who are injured are rarely those who opposed it.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Ignorance, People, Political

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• Humble, honest, ignorance is one of the finest flowers of the human spirit

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Flower, Humble, Ignorance

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• Are we to regard the world of nature simply as a storehouse to be robbed for the immediate benefit of man?

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Nature, Men, World

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• General Systems Theory is a name which has come into use to describe a level of theoretical model-building which lies somewhere between the highly generalized constructions of pure mathematics and the specific theories of the specialized disciplines. Mathematics attempts to organize highly general relationships into a coherent system, a system however which does not have any necessary connections with the "real" world around us. It studies all thinkable relationships abstracted from any concrete situation or body of empirical knowledge.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Real, Lying, Names

  "General Systems Theory - The Skeleton of Science". Management Science, Volume 2. No. 3, pp. 197-208, www.panarchy.org. April 1956.

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• There are, of course, a number of epistemological questions, some of which lie more in the province of the philosopher than they do the economist or the social scientist. The one with which I am particularly concerned here is that of the role of knowledge in social systems, both as a product of the past and as a determinant of the future.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Lying, Past, Numbers

  "The economics of knowledge and the knowledge of economics" by Kenneth E. Boulding in "American Economic Review" (pp. 1-13), May 16, 1966.

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• The very act of thinking about power in our lives and experiences creates a process of revelation and self-analysis that may even make us look at ourselves in a new light... thinking about power and its complex manifestations may not simply lead to a better understanding of the abstract complexities of society, but may have an effect on one?s own image and identity. Perhaps a warning label should be placed on the cover.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Thinking, Self, Light

  Kenneth E. Boulding (1990). “Three Faces of Power”, p.259, SAGE

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• In view of the importance of philanthropy in our society, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to it by economic or social theorists. In economic theory, especially, the subject is almost completely ignored. This is not, I think, because economists regard mankind as basically selfish or even because economic man is supposed to act only in his self-interest; it is rather because economics has essentially grown up around the phenomenon of exchange and its theoretical structure rests heavily on this process.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Selfish, Men, Thinking

  "Notes on a Theory of Philanthropy". "Philanthropy and Public Policy", edited by Frank G. Dickinson, 1962.

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• Knowledge exists in minds, not in books. Before what has been found can be used by practitioners, someone must organize it, integrate it, extract the message.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Book, Mind, Messages

  Attributed in "Sport in perspective" by John T. Partington, Terry Orlick, John H. Salmela, (p. 94), 1982.

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• One of the most important skills of the economist, therefore, is that of simplification of the model. Two important methods of simplification have been developed by economists. One is the method of partial equilibrium analysis (or microeconomics), generally associated with the name of Alfred Marshall and the other is the method of aggregation (or macro-economics), associated with the name of John Maynard Keynes.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Skills, Names, Two

  "The Skills of the Economist". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 19, 1958.

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• Economics, we learn in the history of thought, only became a science by escaping from the casuistry and moralizing of medieval thought.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Escaping, Medieval, Economics

  "Economics As A Moral Science" by Kenneth E. Boulding, in "American Economic Review", 59 (1), (p. 12), March 1969.

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• In any evolutionary process, even in the arts, the search for novelty becomes corrupting.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Art, Novelty, Artistic

  "The Science Revelation". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 26, nr. 7. p. 16, September 1970.

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• The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Vision, Agnostic, Complexity

  "Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution". Book by Kenneth E. Boulding, 1978.

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• Reality, in its quantitative aspect, must be considered as a system of populations... The general study of the equilibria and dynamics of populations seems to have no name; but as it has probably reached its highest development in the biological study known as 'ecology,' this name may well be given to it.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Reality, Names, Population

  "A Reconstruction of Economics". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 5, 1950.

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• At the opposite pole from the gift is tribute - that is, a grant made out of fear and under threat. A threat is a statement of the form "you do something that I want or I will do something that you do not want.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Opposites, Want, Form

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• The use of isoquants to describe the production function did not develop to any great extent until the thirties.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Use, Function, Productions

  "The Theory of the Firm in the Last Ten Years". The American Economic Review, Volume 32, No. 4, p. 800, December 1942.

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• The organizer who creates roles, who creates the holes that will force the pegs to their shape, is a prime creator of personality itself. When we ask of a man, "What is he?" the answer is usually given in terms of his major role, job, or position in society; he is the place that he fills, a painter, a priest, a politician, a criminal.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Jobs, Men, Personality

  KENNETH E. BOULDING (1953). “THE ORGANIZATIONAL REVOLUTION”

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• [In science any model depends on a pre-chosen taxonomy] a set of classifications into which we divide the enormous complexity of the real world... Land, labor, and capital are extremely heterogeneous aggregates, not much better than earth, air, fire, and water.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Real, Land, Fire

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• Any attempt to reduce the complex properties of biological organisms or of nervous systems or of human brains to simple physical and chemical systems is foolish.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Simple, Brain, Nervous

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• I have been gradually coming under the conviction, disturbing for a professional theorist, that there is no such thing as economics - there is only social science applied to economic problems.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Problem, Economics, Conviction

  "A Reconstruction of Economics". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. VII, 1950.

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• [There will be movement toward] behavioral economics... [which] involves study of those aspects of men's images, or cognitive and affective structures that are more relevant to economic decisions.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Men, Decision, Study

  "Contemporary Economic Research" by Kenneth Boulding in "Trends in Social Science" edited by Donald P. Ray (pp. 9-26), 1958.

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• The discounting presumably is to be done for each period of time at that rate of interest which represents the alternative cost of employing capital in the occupation in question; that is, at the rate which the entrepreneur could obtain in other investments

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Entrepreneur, Alternatives, Cost

  "The Theory of the Firm in the Last Ten Years". The American Economic Review, Volume 32, No. 4, p. 793, December 1942.

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• The process of consumption is the final act in the economic drama.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Drama, Finals, Economic

  "Innovation by Demand". Book by Andrew McMeekin, p. 131, 2002.

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