Kenneth Ewart Boulding

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Kenneth Ewart Boulding (often abbreviated to Kenneth E. Boulding ; born January 18, 1910 in Liverpool , † March 18, 1993 in Boulder , Colorado ) was an American economist of British origin. Among other things, he developed the term sociosphere .

Life

Kenneth Boulding has made an extensive contribution to social and economic research in over 1000 publications and around 40 monographs and has received over 30 honorary doctorates (including from Michigan State University ). Boulding came from a Quaker family and studied philosophy and economics at Oxford University . In 1937 he went to the United States, whose citizenship he took in 1948, and taught at Harvard University and the University of Chicago . There he wrote Economic Analysis, an introduction to economics for students in 1941 , which soon became a standard work. During the Second World War he worked for the League of Nations in Princeton , but lost that position in 1944 because of his pacifist activities. After that, he was at the University of Michigan and then (1949-1968) at the University of Colorado at Boulder (1969-1981) as a professor working. In 1957 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1960 to the American Philosophical Society and 1975 to the National Academy of Sciences . In 1982 he became a corresponding member of the British Academy .

Boulding was president of the American Economic Association in 1968, the Society for General Systems Research, the International Peace Research Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science , among others . In its initial phase he worked in the Christian Peace Conference (CFK), at the third conference of which he took part in 1960 in Prague .

Scientific achievements

Boulding is a recognized outsider within its discipline. He always understood his role as a scientist broadly and politically, he dealt intensively with questions of religion and ethics. He was particularly involved in the early peace movement since the 1950s, where Kenneth Boulding and his wife Elise M. Boulding are considered the founding figures of conflict and peace research. Boulding was also very interested in the idea of ​​a general systems theory . Accordingly, he always understood the economy as part of a broader social context and sought a connection to sociology but also to biology in his work . On the other hand, he was always a bit distant from his own discipline. He criticizes economics' fixation on mathematical solutions as well as its attempts to forecast future developments through its models. Boulding countered this with the idea of ​​an " evolutionary economics ", in which the factor of knowledge or know-how as well as adaptation and learning processes play a special role. One of his best-known works is the essay The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth from 1966. The text is an attempt to provide a theoretical foundation for a non-growth-oriented economy and Boulding's central contribution to the environmental debate of his time. He stresses the role of economic substance in satisfying our needs. In a closed system you have to try to get by with as little flow as possible. These thoughts, and especially the spaceship metaphor, were received frequently in the years that followed.

In the theory of the social sciences and humanities, Boulding coined the term "method imperialism" for the attempt to generalize rational calculations. An example of method imperialism is the neoliberal position, according to which the area of ​​application of the market principle is supposed to be extended beyond its original purely economic context to the sphere of political decisions. The market principle should then apply everywhere. Everything should be placed under the principle of exchange.

Quotes

"Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."

"Anyone who thinks exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."

Publications

  • Economic Analysis. Harper & Brothers, New York 1941
  • The Economics of Peace. Prentice Hall, New York 1945
    • Peace economy. Francke, Bern 1946
  • A Reconstruction of Economics. John Wiley & Sons, New York 1950
  • The Organizational Revolution: A Study in the Ethics of Economic Organization. Harper & Brothers, New York 1953
  • The Image: Knowledge of life in society. 1956.
    • The new guiding principles. Econ-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1958
  • Principles of Economic Policy. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs 1958
  • The Skills of the Economist. Howard Allen, Cleveland 1958
  • with W. Allen Spivey (Ed.): Linear Programming and the Theory of the Firm. Macmillan, New York 1960
  • Conflict and Defense: A general theory. Harper & Brothers, New York 1962
  • with Emile Benoit (Ed.): Disarmament and the Economy. Harper & Brothers, New York 1963
  • The Meaning of the Twentieth Century: The Great Transition. Harper & Brothers, New York 1964
  • The Impact of the Social Sciences. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 1966
  • Beyond Economics: Essays on Society, Religion, and Ethics. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1968
  • Economics as a Science. McGraw-Hill, New York 1970
  • (Ed. And Introduction): Peace and the War Industry. Aldine, Chicago 1970; with revised introduction: Transaction Books, New Brunswick 1973
  • A Primer on Social Dynamics: History as Dialectics and Development. Free Press, New York 1970
  • Collected papers. Colorado Associated University Press, Boulder
    • Vol. I: Economics (1932-1955). 1971
    • Vol. II: Economics (1956-1970). 1971
    • Vol. III: Political Economy. 1973
    • Vol. IV: Toward a General Social Science. 1974
    • Vol. V: International Systems: Peace, Conflict Resolution, and Politics. 1975
    • Vol. VI: Toward the Twenty-First Century: Political Economy, Social Systems, and World Peace. 1985
  • with Tapan Mukerjee (Ed.): Economic Imperialism: A Book of Readings. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1972
  • with Martin Pfaff (Ed.): Redistribution to the Rich and the Poor: The Grants Economics of Income Distribution. Wadsworth, Belmont 1972
  • The Economy of Love and Fear: A Preface to Grants Economics. Wadsworth, Belmont 1973
  • with Martin & Anita Pfaff (eds.): Transfers in an Urbanized Economy. Wadsworth, Belmont 1973
  • with Alfred Kuhn & Lawrence Senesh: System Analysis and Its Use in the Classroom. Social Science Education Consortium, Boulder 1973
    • Systems analysis and its application in the classroom. Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 1975, ISBN 3-7815-0266-X
  • Sonnets from the Interior Life and Other Autobiographical Verse. Poems. Colorado Associated University Press, Boulder 1975
  • Ecodynamics: A new theory of societal evolution. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills 1978
  • with Thomas Frederick Wilson (Ed.): Redistribution Through the Financial System: The Grants Economics of Money and Credit. Praeger, New York 1978
  • Stable Peace. University of Texas Press, Austin 1978
  • Beasts, Ballads, and Bouldingisms: A Collection of Writings by Kenneth E. Boulding. Edited by Richard P. Beilock. Transaction Books, New Brunswick / London 1980
  • with Elise Boulding & Guy M. Burgess: The Social System of the Planet Earth. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading 1980
  • Evolutionary Economics. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills 1981
  • with Lawrence Senesh (Ed.): The Optimum Utilization of Knowledge: Making Knowledge Serve Human Betterment. Westview Press, Boulder 1983
  • (Ed.): The Economics of Human Betterment. Macmillan Press, London 1984
  • Human Betterment. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills 1985
  • The World as a Total System. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills 1985
  • Three faces of power. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills 1989

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=3833
  2. ↑ List of Honorary Doctorates from Michigan State University
  3. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 7, 2020 .
  4. ^ Past and Present Officers. aeaweb.org ( American Economic Association ), accessed October 28, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Kenneth E. Boulding: Evolutionary Economics. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills 1981
  6. ↑ Kenneth E. Boulding: The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth . In: Henry Jarrett (Ed.): Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy, Essays from the Sixth RFF Forum on Environmental Quality. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1966. pp. 3-14.
  7. ↑ Kenneth E. Boulding: The economics of the future spaceship earth. Translated by Lexi von Hoffmann. In: Beam us up, Boulding! 40 years of "Spaceship Earth" . Association for Ecological Economy - Articles and reports 7/2006. Pages 9–21.
  8. ^ Blake Alcott: Kenneth Boulding's guide from 1966. In: Beam us up, Boulding! 40 years of "Spaceship Earth" . Association for Ecological Economy - Articles and reports 7/2006. Pages 25–29.
  9. ↑ Fred Luks: Bouldings spaceship earth : An ecological-economic classic. In: Beam us up, Boulding! 40 years of "Spaceship Earth" . Association for Ecological Economy - Articles and reports 7/2006. Pages 30–42.
  10. ↑ http://worldif.economist.com/article/12121/debate
personal data
SURNAME Boulding, Kenneth Ewart
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boulding, Kenneth E.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American economist
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Liverpool
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1993
Place of death Boulder (Colorado)