Talk:Kenneth Boulding

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Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis.
Economists are like computers. They need to have facts punched into them.
We make our tools, and then they shape us.
There is no such thing as economics, only social science applied to economic problems.
On Behaviourism:
That is considered wisdom, which
Describes the scratch and not the itch.

Boulding's 1st Law: "Anything that exists is possible."
"Where there is hypocrisy, there is hope."

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[The historical] development in the international system may almost be defined as the process by which we pass from stable war to stable peace.[1]
The different values of a variable must, however, be capable of simple ordering; that is, of any two values it must be possible to say that one is 'after' (higher, lefter, brighter than) the other.[2]
The idea of knowledge as an improbable structure is still a good place to start.[3]
Economics, we learn in the history of thought, only became a science by escaping from the casuistry and moralizing of medieval thought.[4]
Economists and technologists bring the "bits", but it requires the social scientists and humanists to bring the "wits.[5]
One reason why the progressive state is 'cheerful' is that social conflict is diminished by it.[6]
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.[7]
Private property is a means, and neither its abolition nor its unrestricted right should be an end in itself.[8]
[The integrative system] deals with such matters as respect, legitimacy, community, friendship, affection, love, and of course their opposites, across a broad scale of human relationships and interactions.[9]
Closely associated with the time structure of his image is the image of the structure of relationships.[10]
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[11]
The ability to work with systems of general equilibrium is perhaps one of the most important skills of the economist — a skill which he shares with many other scientists, but in which he has perhaps a certain comparative advantage.[12]
DNA has been aptly described as the first three-dimensional Xerox machine.[13]
The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state.[14]
We all, or nearly all, consent If wages rise by ten per cent It puts a choice before the nation Of unemployment or inflation.[15]
[The loss- of-strength gradient is] the degree to which military and political power diminishes as we move a unit distance away from its home base.[16]
The use of isoquants to describe the production function did not develop to any great extent until the thirties.[17]
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.[18]
One wonders sometimes if science will not grind to a stop in an assemblage of walled-in hermits, each mumbling to himself words in a private language that only he can understand.[19]
Conflict may be defined as a situation of competition in which the parties are aware of the incompatibility of potential future positions, and in which each party wishes to occupy a position that is incompatible with the wishes of the other.[20]
Economics, we learn in the history of thought, only became a science by escaping from the casuistry and moralizing of medieval thought.[21]
Two knowledge structures might be equally improbable but one might be much more significant than the other.[22]
It seems reasonable to suppose that conflict does exhibit many general patterns, that the patterns of conflict in industrial relations, international relations, interpersonal relations, and even animal life are not wholly different from one another, and that it is, therefore, worth looking for the common element[23]
The different values of a variable must, however, be capable of simple ordering; that is, of any two values it must be possible to say that one is 'after' (higher, lefter, brighter than) the other.[24]
In the broadest sense of the word, capital means the sum total of the valuable things possessed by the individuals of a society, excluding "claims," that is, mere titles to property.[25]
Science might also be defined as the process of substituting unimportant questions which can be answered for important questions which cannot.[26]
Consumption is the death of capital, and the only valid arguments in favor of consumption are arguments in favor of death itself.[27]
It also mysteriously enough knows how to join with one oxygen atom to form carbon monoxide. It is little more than a figure of speech, however, to regard this ability as knowledge.[28]
The image of the frontier is probably one of the oldest images of mankind, and it is not surprising that we should find it hard to get rid of.[29]
There are only two things we know about the future. One is where and when eclipses will take place and the other is that a kitten will never grow up into a rhinoceros.[30]
The gene is a wonderful teacher. It is, however, a very poor learner.[31]
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...[32]
A world of unseen dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of democratic government.[33]
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[34]
[Peace praxis is] a peace process that deals with conflict integratively.[35]
Canada has no cultural unity, no linguistic unity, no religious unity, no economic unity, no geographic unity. All it has is unity.[36]
If a totally new image is to come into being however, there must be sensitivity to internal messages, the image itself must be sensitive to change, must be unstable, and it must include a value image which places high value on trials, experiments, and the trying of new things.[37]
We can think of history as a kind of layer cake in which a number of different layers run side by side through time, each with a dynamic of its own, and yet each from time to time profoundly penetrating and interacting with others.[38]
The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge.[39]
Humble, honest, ignorance is one of the finest flowers of the human spirit[40]
Every culture, or subculture, is defined by a set of common values, that is, generally agreed upon preferences[41]
The nine elements that we have described in societal evolution of the three families of phenotypes - the phyla of things, organizations and people, the genetic bases in knowledge operating through energy and materials to produce phenotypes, and the three bonding relations of threat, integration and exchange - all interact on each other.[42]
If there is one idea that has dominated the history of the United States, it is the idea of progress. [43]
Mathematicians themselves set up standards of generality and elegance in their exposition which are a bar to understand.[44]
Accounting for the most part, remains a legalistic and traditional practice, almost immune to self-criticism by scientific methods.[45]
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.[46]
Almost every organization... exhibits two faces — a smiling face which it turns toward its members and a frowning face which it turns to the world outside.[47]
We should always bear in mind that numbers represent a simplification of reality.[48]
Production functions involving only land, labor and capital... never work and never explain economic development.[49]
The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state.[50]
DNA has been aptly described as the first three-dimensional Xerox machine.[51]
We all, or nearly all, consent If wages rise by ten per cent It puts a choice before the nation Of unemployment or inflation.[52]
[The loss- of-strength gradient is] the degree to which military and political power diminishes as we move a unit distance away from its home base.[53]
The use of isoquants to describe the production function did not develop to any great extent until the thirties.[54]
Conflict may be defined as a situation of competition in which the parties are aware of the incompatibility of potential future positions[55]
[The historical] development in the international system may almost be defined as the process by which we pass from stable war to stable peace.[56]
Private property is a means, and neither its abolition nor its unrestricted right should be an end in itself.[57]
One reason why the progressive state is 'cheerful' is that social conflict is diminished by it.[58]
Economists and technologists bring the "bits", but it requires the social scientists and humanists to bring the "wits."[59]
Economics, we learn in the history of thought, only became a science by escaping from the casuistry and moralizing of medieval thought.[60]
[if the automobile is replaced by public trans port] the social structure of cities will revert to the ecological pattern of 1880.[61]
Humble, honest, ignorance is one of the finest flowers of the human spirit.[62]
Physicists can only talk to other physicists and economists to economists... sociologists often cannot even understand each other.[63]
The process of consumption... is the final act in the economic drama[64]
[The law of evolution states that] complexity increases in terms of differentiation and structure.[65]