Kenneth E. Boulding Quotes About Economists

Quotes about: Economists

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

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Fun, Believe, Population Problem

  "The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth" by Kenneth E. Boulding, 1966.

• Economists are like computers. They need to have facts punched into them.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Facts, Needs, Computer

• In view of the importance of philanthropy in our society, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to it by economic or social theorists. In economic theory, especially, the subject is almost completely ignored. This is not, I think, because economists regard mankind as basically selfish or even because economic man is supposed to act only in his self-interest; it is rather because economics has essentially grown up around the phenomenon of exchange and its theoretical structure rests heavily on this process.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Selfish, Men, Thinking

  "Notes on a Theory of Philanthropy". "Philanthropy and Public Policy", edited by Frank G. Dickinson, 1962.

• 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 E. Boulding

  Dope, Medicine, Individuality

  "The Concept of Need for Health Services". The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Volume 44, No. 4, Part 2, p. 202, 1967.

• Physicists only talk to physicists, economists to economists-worse still, nuclear physicists only talk to nuclear physicists and econometricians to econometricians. One wonders sometimes if science will not grind to a stop in an assemblage of walled-in hermits, each mumbling to himself words in a private language that only he can understand.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Science, Understanding, Nuclear

  Kenneth E. Boulding (2017). “Illustrating Economics: Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms”, p.149, Routledge

• It [knowledge] is clearly related to information, which we can now measure; and an economist especially is tempted to regard knowledge as a kind of capital structure, corresponding to information as an income flow. Knowledge, that is to say, is some kind of improbable structure or stock made up essentially of patterns - that is, improbable arrangements, and the more improbable the arrangements, we might suppose, the more knowledge there is.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Income, Patterns, Might

  "Beyond Economics: Essays on Society, Religion, and Ethics" by Kenneth Boulding, University of Michigan Press, (p. 142), 1970.

• It is almost as hard to define mathematics as it is to define economics, and one is tempted to fall back on the famous old definition attributed to Jacob Viner, "Economics is what economists do," and say that mathematics is what mathematicians do. A large part of mathematics deals with the formal relations of quantities or numbers.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Fall, Numbers, Definitions

  "Economics As a Science" by Kenneth E. Boulding, McGraw-Hill, (p. 97), 1988.

• Economists and technologists bring the "bits", but it requires the social scientists and humanists to bring the "wits.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Scientist, Social, Wit

• There are, of course, a number of epistemological questions, some of which lie more in the province of the philosopher than they do the economist or the social scientist. The one with which I am particularly concerned here is that of the role of knowledge in social systems, both as a product of the past and as a determinant of the future.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Lying, Past, Numbers

  "The economics of knowledge and the knowledge of economics" by Kenneth E. Boulding in "American Economic Review" (pp. 1-13), May 16, 1966.

• 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.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Skills, Important, Scientist

  "The Skills of the Economist". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 15, 1958.

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

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Humble, Skills, Economist

  "The Skills of the Economist". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 4, 1958.

• One of the most important skills of the economist, therefore, is that of simplification of the model. Two important methods of simplification have been developed by economists. One is the method of partial equilibrium analysis (or microeconomics), generally associated with the name of Alfred Marshall and the other is the method of aggregation (or macro-economics), associated with the name of John Maynard Keynes.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Skills, Names, Two

  "The Skills of the Economist". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 19, 1958.

• [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.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Degrees, Lost, Equilibrium

  "The Skills of the Economist". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 14, 1958.

• Physicists can only talk to other physicists and economists to economists... sociologists often cannot even understand each other.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Economist, Physicist, Sociologists

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