Kenneth E. Boulding Quotes - Page 5

DNA has been aptly described as the first three-dimensional Xerox machine.

As far as many statistical series that are related to activities of mankind are concerned, the date that divides human history into two equal parts is well within living memory. The world of today is as different from the world I was born in as that world was from Julius Caesar s. I was born in the middle of human history, to date, roughly. Almost as much has happened since I was born as happened before.

The illusion that consumption - and its correlative, income - is desirable probably stems from too great preoccupation with what Knight calls "one-use goods," such as food and fuel, where the utilization and consumption of the good are tightly bound together in a single act or event. ... any economy in the consumption of fuel that enables us to maintain warmth or to generate power with lessened consumption again leaves us better off. ... there is no great value in consumption itself.

Justification, in terms of the broadening of freedom, for any particular form of institution of property must be argued in terms of whether the losses caused by the restrictions imposed are greater or less than the gains derived from the elimination of costly conflict.

[The historical] development in the international system may almost be defined as the process by which we pass from stable war to stable peace.

The concept of need is often looked upon rather unfavorably by economists, in contrast with the concept of demand. Both, however, have their own strengths and weaknesses. The need concept is criticized as being too mechanical, as denying the autonomy and individuality of the human person, and as implying that the human being is a machine which "needs" fuel in the shape of food, engine dope in the shape of medicine, and spare parts provided by the surgeon.

The concept of a value-free science is absurd.

[The question for the behavioral disciplines is simply] what is better, and how do we get there?

The controversy as to whether socialism is possible has been settled by the fact that it exists, and it is a fundamental axiom of my philosophy, at any rate, that anything that exists, is possible.

[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.

The greater the penalties laid on sellers in the black market... the higher the black market price.

It is clear that the building of models is not a purely mechanical process but requires skill of a high order - not merely mathematical skill but a sensitivity to the relative importance of different factors and a critical, almost an artistic, faculty in the selection of behaviour equations which are reasonable, tentative hypotheses in explaining the behaviour of actual economies.

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.

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.

[The notion of equilibrium] is a notion which can be employed usefully in varying degrees of looseness. It is an absolutely indispensable part of the toolbag of the economist and one which he can often contribute usefully to other sciences which are occasionally apt to get lost in the trackless exfoliations of purely dynamic systems.

There is something, however humble, which can properly be called skill among those who recognise themselves as economists.

One reason why the progressive state is 'cheerful' is that social conflict is diminished by it.

Without the heroic, man has no meaning; without the economic, he has no sense. Economic man is most likely to be economic woman - a good wife, pulling the coat tails of her heroic husband, checking his extravagances of speech and action with words of caution and good sense. But without the heroic coat tails to pull, life for both of them would be dull and savorless indeed.

One advantage of exhibiting a hierarchy of systems in this way is that it gives us some idea of the present gaps in both theoretical and empirical knowledge. Adequate theoretical models extend up to about the fourth level, and not much beyond. Empirical knowledge is deficient at practically all levels.

The trouble with taxonomic boxes is... that that they tend to be empty, however beautiful they are on the outside.

Production functions involving only land, labor and capital... never work and never explain economic development.

The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state.

[on the theory of the firm] It is exactly analogous to the analysis of the reactions of a consumer by means of indifferent curves. Indeed, a consumer is merely a 'firm' whose product is 'utility.'

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

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