88 quotes
[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 question for the behavioral disciplines is simply] what is better, and how do we get there?
Kenneth Boulding (1977)
Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis
to Kenneth Boulding in: Peter J. Dougherty (2002)
[Peace praxis is] a peace process that deals with conflict integratively.
p. 140 as cited in: Joseph De Rivera (2008)
If we saw tomorrow’s newspaper today, tomorrow would never happen.
[The historical] development in the international system may almost be defined as the process by which we pass from stable war to stable peace.
Kenneth Boulding (1975)
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.
to Kenneth Boulding in: Ramage Magnus and Karen Shipp (2009)
Another indication of the magnitude of the present transition is the fact that, as far as many statistical series related to activities of mankind are concerned, the date that divides human history into two equal parts is well within living memory.
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.
[if the automobile is replaced by public trans port] the social structure of cities will revert to the ecological pattern of 1880.
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.
Perhaps the most difficult ethical problem of the scientific community arises not so much from conflict with other subcultures as from its own success. Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.
Kenneth Boulding (1971)
Just as there are inputs which are supplied by the owner of a business, and whose value therefore is a "virtual," not an actual, expense, so there can be outputs which are consumed by the owner of a business, and whose value therefore forms.
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.
In calling society an ecological system we are not merely using an analogy; society is an example of the general concept of an "ecosystem" that is, an ecological system of which biological systems--forests, fields, swamps--are other examples.
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.
[The law of evolution states that] complexity increases in terms of differentiation and structure.
p. 10 as cited in P.P. Kandelaars (1999)
[Boulding's belief in] the immediate experience of the Holy Spirit, or Inward Light, available to every man to teach, guide, reprove, and draw him up toward goodness.
p. 253. cited in: D.A. Latzko (1995)
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.
Physicists can only talk to other physicists and economists to economists... sociologists often cannot even understand each other.
to Kenneth Boulding in Hans Adriaansens (1980)