Kenneth E. Boulding
Encyclopedia
Kenneth Ewart Boulding was an economist
, educator, peace activist, poet
, religious mystic
, devoted Quaker, systems scientist, and interdisciplinary philosopher. He was cofounder of General Systems Theory and founder of numerous ongoing intellectual projects in economics
and social science. He was married to Elise M. Boulding
.
citizenship in 1948. During the years 1949 to 1967, he was a faculty member of the University of Michigan
. In 1967, he joined the faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder
, where he remained until his retirement.
Boulding was president of numerous scholarly societies including the American Economic Association
, the Society for General Systems Research
, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science
. He was not only a prolific writer and a creative integrator of knowledge, but an academician of world stature—indeed, a magisterial figure in the discipline of social science. For Boulding, economics and sociology
were not social sciences—rather, they were all aspects of a single social science devoted to the study of human persons and their relationships (organizations). Boulding spearheaded an evolutionary (instead of equilibrium) approach to economics.
Boulding, with his wife Elise
, was an active member of the Religious Society of Friends
, or Quakers. He took part in Quaker gatherings, served on committees, and spoke to and about the Friends. The two were members of meetings in Nashville, Tennessee, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Boulder, Colorado. Interestingly, although he stuttered, when he ministered in a Friends meeting, he spoke clearly. In March 1971, he even conducted a silent vigil at the headquarters of the American Friends Service Committee
in Philadelphia to protest what he considered its distancing itself from Quakers. He penned the widely circulated "There is a Spirit," a series of sonnets he wrote in 1945 based on the last statement of the 17th century Quaker James Nayler
.
Boulding emphasized that human economic and other behavior is embedded in a larger interconnected system. To understand the results of our behavior, economic or otherwise, we must first research and develop a scientific understanding of the ecodynamics
of the general system, the global society in which we live, in all its dimensions spiritual and material. Boulding believed that in the absence of a committed effort to the right kind of social science research and understanding, the human species might well be doomed to extinction. But he died optimistic, believing our evolutionary journey had just begun.
, Boulding made important contributions to the fields of political science
, sociology
, philosophy
, and social psychology
.
is an accumulation of wealth, and with psychic capital, the accumulation is one of desirable mental states, which admittedly are highly transitory in nature. The mental states could be memories of pleasure, success, achievement, recognition, and the desire to add to psychic capital is likely to be a powerful motivating force. Exchanges involving increases or decreases of psychic capital are likely to occur at any time, either through decision or through the turn of events.
However, failure
in a task could also lead to a depletion of psychic capital. An accumulation of negative memories of failures, disaster
s, atrocities, or perceived injustices and indignities (as either recipient or perpetrator) could be called negative psychic capital. Negative psychic capital can also be a powerful motivating factor, in the pursuit of satisfaction through revenge
or a settling of scores. In either of its forms as positive or negative psychic capital, this package of collective memory
is an essential link between collective memory and collective mental state
.
The concept is somewhat more specific than social capital
, which focuses on social network
s rather than mental states.
movement. In his “Economic Development as an Evolutionary System,” Boulding suggests a parallel between economic development and biological evolution.
1940s to 1960s
1970s
1980s to 1993
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, educator, peace activist, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, religious mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, devoted Quaker, systems scientist, and interdisciplinary philosopher. He was cofounder of General Systems Theory and founder of numerous ongoing intellectual projects in economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
and social science. He was married to Elise M. Boulding
Elise M. Boulding
Elise M. Boulding was a Quaker sociologist, and author credited as a major contributor to creating the academic discipline of Peace and Conflict Studies. Her holistic, multidimensional approach to peace research sets her apart as an important scholar and activist in multiple fields...
.
Biography
Boulding was born in Liverpool, England in 1910. He graduated from Oxford University, and was granted United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
citizenship in 1948. During the years 1949 to 1967, he was a faculty member of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. In 1967, he joined the faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
, where he remained until his retirement.
Boulding was president of numerous scholarly societies including the American Economic Association
American Economic Association
The American Economic Association, or AEA, is a learned society in the field of economics, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. It publishes one of the most prestigious academic journals in economics: the American Economic Review...
, the Society for General Systems Research
Society for General Systems Research
The Society for General Systems Research is predecessor of the current International Society for the Systems Sciences , known to be one the first interdisciplinary and international co-operations in the field of systems theory and systems science...
, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
. He was not only a prolific writer and a creative integrator of knowledge, but an academician of world stature—indeed, a magisterial figure in the discipline of social science. For Boulding, economics and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
were not social sciences—rather, they were all aspects of a single social science devoted to the study of human persons and their relationships (organizations). Boulding spearheaded an evolutionary (instead of equilibrium) approach to economics.
Boulding, with his wife Elise
Elise M. Boulding
Elise M. Boulding was a Quaker sociologist, and author credited as a major contributor to creating the academic discipline of Peace and Conflict Studies. Her holistic, multidimensional approach to peace research sets her apart as an important scholar and activist in multiple fields...
, was an active member of the Religious Society of Friends
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
, or Quakers. He took part in Quaker gatherings, served on committees, and spoke to and about the Friends. The two were members of meetings in Nashville, Tennessee, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Boulder, Colorado. Interestingly, although he stuttered, when he ministered in a Friends meeting, he spoke clearly. In March 1971, he even conducted a silent vigil at the headquarters of the American Friends Service Committee
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...
in Philadelphia to protest what he considered its distancing itself from Quakers. He penned the widely circulated "There is a Spirit," a series of sonnets he wrote in 1945 based on the last statement of the 17th century Quaker James Nayler
James Nayler
James Nayler was an English Quaker leader. He is among the members of the Valiant Sixty, a group of early Quaker preachers and missionaries. At the peak of his career, he preached against enclosure and the slave trade....
.
Boulding emphasized that human economic and other behavior is embedded in a larger interconnected system. To understand the results of our behavior, economic or otherwise, we must first research and develop a scientific understanding of the ecodynamics
Ecodynamics
Ecodynamics is a part of applied economics. It deals with monetary value, the usage of money, money flow, labour, and capital.-External links:* * The International Society for Ecological Economics - http://www.ecoeco.org/...
of the general system, the global society in which we live, in all its dimensions spiritual and material. Boulding believed that in the absence of a committed effort to the right kind of social science research and understanding, the human species might well be doomed to extinction. But he died optimistic, believing our evolutionary journey had just begun.
Work
In addition to economicsEconomics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, Boulding made important contributions to the fields of political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, and social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
.
Economic Analysis
Boulding's major work in economics was his introductory textbook, Economic Analysis, which first appeared in 1941. The book sought "to be a contribution to the development and systematization of the body of economic analysis itself."Psychic capital
Psychic capital is a term first used by Boulding (1950). CapitalCapital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...
is an accumulation of wealth, and with psychic capital, the accumulation is one of desirable mental states, which admittedly are highly transitory in nature. The mental states could be memories of pleasure, success, achievement, recognition, and the desire to add to psychic capital is likely to be a powerful motivating force. Exchanges involving increases or decreases of psychic capital are likely to occur at any time, either through decision or through the turn of events.
However, failure
Failure
Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to fracture of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of forensic...
in a task could also lead to a depletion of psychic capital. An accumulation of negative memories of failures, disaster
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
s, atrocities, or perceived injustices and indignities (as either recipient or perpetrator) could be called negative psychic capital. Negative psychic capital can also be a powerful motivating factor, in the pursuit of satisfaction through revenge
Revenge
Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
or a settling of scores. In either of its forms as positive or negative psychic capital, this package of collective memory
Collective memory
Collective memory refers to the shared pool of information held in the memories of two or more members of a group, and was coined by the philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. Collective memory can be shared, passed on and constructed by groups both small and large...
is an essential link between collective memory and collective mental state
Collective mental state
Mental state is generally a literary or legal term, and is only used in psychiatry or psychology as the mental state examination, where it refers to the condition of someone's mind. Here there is an assessment of thought processes, memory, mood, cognitive state, and energy level...
.
The concept is somewhat more specific than social capital
Social capital
Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. The concept of social capital highlights the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to get collective or economic results. The term social capital is frequently...
, which focuses on social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
s rather than mental states.
Evolutionary Economics
Boulding was the key exponent of the evolutionary economicsEvolutionary economics
Evolutionary economics is part of mainstream economics as well as heterodox school of economic thought that is inspired by evolutionary biology...
movement. In his “Economic Development as an Evolutionary System,” Boulding suggests a parallel between economic development and biological evolution.
“They, economics and evolution, are both examples of a larger process, which has been at work in this part of the universe for a very long time. This is the process of the development of structures of increasing complexity and improbability. The evolutionary process always operates through mutation and selection and has involved some distinction between the genotype which mutates and the phenotype which is selected. The process by which the genotype constructs the phenotype may be described as "organization". Economic development manifests itself largely in the production of commodities, that is, goods and services. It originates, however, in ideas, plans, and attitudes in the human mind. These are the genotypes in economic development. This whole process indeed can be described as a process in the growth of knowledge. What the economist calls "capital" is nothing more than human knowledge imposed on the material world. Knowledge and the growth of knowledge, therefore, is the essential key to economic development. Investment, financial systems and economic organizations and institutions are in a sense only the machinery by which a knowledge process is created and expressed.” -- Kenneth E. Boulding
See also
- Spaceship EarthSpaceship EarthSpaceship Earth is a world view term usually expressing concern over the use of limited resources available on Earth and the behavior of everyone on it to act as a harmonious crew working toward the greater good....
- Holism in scienceHolism in scienceHolism in science, or Holistic science, is an approach to research that emphasizes the study of complex systems. This practice is in contrast to a purely analytic tradition which aims to gain understanding of systems by dividing them into smaller composing elements and gaining understanding of the...
- Loss of Strength GradientLoss of Strength GradientThe Loss of Strength Gradient was devised by Kenneth Boulding in 1962. He argued that the amount of a nation’s military power that could be brought to bear in any part of the world depended on geographic distance. The Loss of Strength Gradient demonstrated, in graphical form, that the further away...
- Evolutionary economicsEvolutionary economicsEvolutionary economics is part of mainstream economics as well as heterodox school of economic thought that is inspired by evolutionary biology...
Publications
Boulding published some thirty books and hundreds of articles. Books, a selection:1940s to 1960s
- 1941, Economic Analysis, Harper & Brothers.
- 1945, The Economics of Peace, Prentice Hall.
- 1945, There is a Spirit: The Nayler Sonnets, Fellowship Publications.
- 1950, A Reconstruction of Economics, J. Wiley.
- 1953, The Organizational Revolution: A Study in the Ethics of Economic Organization, Harper & Brothers.
- 1956, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society, University of Michigan Press.
- 1958, The Skills of the Economist, Cleveland: Howard Allen.
- 1958, Principles of Economic Policy, Prentice-Hall, 1958.
- 1962, Conflict and Defence: A General Theory, Harper & Bros.
- 1964, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century: the Great Transition, Harper & Row.
- 1966 The Impact of the Social Sciences, Rutgers University Press
- 1966, “The Economics of Knowledge and the Knowledge of Economics.” American Economic Review, 16 (May): 1-13
- 1968, Beyond Economics: Essays on Society, Religion, and Ethics, (University of Michigan Press
- 1969, “The Grants Economy,” Michigan Academician (Winter)
1970s
- 1970, Economics as a Science, (McGraw-Hill, 1970).
- 1970, A Primer on Social Dynamics: History as Dialectics and Development, (Free Press, 1970).
- 1971, Economics, Colorado Associated University Press, 1971.
- 1973, Political Economy, Colorado Associated University Press, 1973.
- 1973, The Economy of Love and Fear: A Preface to Grants Economics, Wadsworth.
- 1974, Toward a General Social Science, Colorado Associated University Press.
- 1975, International Systems: Peace, Conflict Resolution, and Politics, Colorado Associated University Press.
- 1975, Sonnets from the Interior Life, and Other Autobiographical Verse, Colorado Associated University Press.
- 1978, Stable Peace, University of Texas Press.
- 1978, Ecodynamics: A New Theory of Societal Evolution, Sage.
1980s to 1993
- 1980, Beasts, Ballads, and Bouldingisms: A Collection of Writings, Transaction Books.
- 1981, Evolutionary Economics, Sage
- 1981, A Preface to Grants Economics: The Economy of Love and Fear. New York: Praeger.
- 1985, Toward the Twenty-First Century: Political Economy, Social Systems, and World Peace, Colorado Associated University Press.
- 1985, Human Betterment, Sage.
- 1985, The World as a Total System, Sage.
- 1986, Mending the World: Quaker Insights on the Social Order, Pendle Hill Publications.
- 1989, Three Faces of Power, Sage.
- 1992, Towards a New Economics: Critical Essays on Ecology, Distribution, and Other Themes, Edward Elgar.
- 1993, The Structure of a Modern Economy: the United States, 1929-89, Macmillan.
Further reading
- Fontaine, Philippe. "Stabilizing American Society: Kenneth Boulding and the Integration of the Social Sciences, 1943-1980," Science in Context, June 2010, Vol. 23 Issue 2, pp 221–265
- Wright, Robert. Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information HarperCollins, 1989. Lengthy profiles of Edward Fredkin, Edward O. Wilson, and Kenneth Boulding.
External links
- An overview of Boulding's major contributions by David Latzko
- Boulding's 1966 essay The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth
- http://www.colorado.edu/econ/Kenneth.Boulding
- Whole Terrain link to Boulding's articles published in Whole TerrainWhole TerrainWhole Terrain: Journal of Reflective Environmental Practice is an environmentally-themed literary journal that's published approximately once a year by Antioch University New England . Each volume explores emerging ecological and social issues from the perspectives of practitioners working in the...
- The Feather River Anthology (1966)
- The Common Sense of Kenneth Boulding
- review of The Economy of Love and Fear by Raul Caruso
- The Boulding's 'Triangular Theory of Social Interactions' by Raul Caruso (in Italian
- Kenneth Boulding: A Scholar and a Poet by S.S. Kutateladze (in Russian