Kenneth Boulding quotes

Kenneth Boulding was a British-American economist, educator, and systems scientist known for his interdisciplinary approach to the social sciences. His work spanned economics, peace research, and the study of complex systems. He made significant contributions to understanding human behavior in economic and social contexts. Here are 154 of his quotes:

No science of any kind can be divorced from ethical considerations... Science is a human learning process which arises in certain subcultures in human society and not in others, and a subculture as we seen is a group of people defined by acceptance of certain common values, that is, an ethic which permits extensive communication between them. (Kenneth Boulding)
The process of consumption... is the final act in the economic drama. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
The social system tends to be dominated by images... especially of the future, which act cybernetically, constantly guided by perceived divergences between the real and the ideal. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
[The consumer is] the supreme mover of economic order... for whom all goods are made and towards whom all economic activity is directed. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
Human artifacts not only include material structures and objects, such as buildings, machines, and automobiles, but they also include organizations, organizational structures like extended families . . . tribes, nations, corporations, churches, political parties, governments, and so on. Some of these may grow unconsciously, but they all originate and are sustained by the images in the human mind. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
One reason why the progressive state is 'cheerful' is that social conflict is diminished by it. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
Don't go to great trouble to optimize something that never should be done at all. Aim to enhance total systems properties, such as creativity, stability, diversity, resilience, and sustainability–whether they are easily measured or not. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
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. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
Production functions involving only land, labor and capital... never work and never explain economic development. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge. It recognizes aesthetic, moral, and religious ideas and experiences as a species, in this case of mental structures or of images, which clearly interacts with other species in the world's great' ecosystem. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
...the perception of potential threats to survival may be much more important in determining behavior than the perceptions of potential profits, so that profit maximization is not really the driving force. It is fear of loss rather than hope of gain that limits our behavior. (Kenneth Boulding)
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
The only religion that still demands human sacrifice is nationalism. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
The human condition can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas all experiences are of the past, all decisions are about the future. It is the great task of human knowledge to bridge this gap and to find those patterns in the past which can be projected into the future as realistic images. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
The world moves into the future as a result of decisions, not as a result of plans. Plans are significant only insofar as they affect decisions. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
Equilibrium is a figment of the human imagination. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
Theories without facts may be barren, but facts without theories are meaningless. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
We should always bear in mind that numbers represent a simplification of reality. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
The concept of a value-free science is absurd. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
Accounting for the most part, remains a legalistic and traditional practice, almost immune to self-criticism by scientific methods. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
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. (Kenneth Boulding)
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. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
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... View quote
Kenneth Boulding
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. View quote
Kenneth Boulding
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. View quote
Kenneth Boulding