Illustrating Economics

Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms

Kenneth E. Boulding

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781412811705
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351513661
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

This volume is a sampling of quips, verses, drawings, and even the music of one of the most original and versatile minds of the twentieth century, Kenneth Boulding prominent economist, lecturer, and author.The driving force behind Kenneth Boulding's wideranging book is that he truly en joys all that he does. Indeed, his greatest accomplishment may very well be that he was a profoundly happy man. This is reflected in works that are laced with beauty, wit, and extraordinary imagery-works that are often composed and appeared in the most unexpected of places. In the midst of one of the classic textbooks of his generally staid profession, Economic Analysis, Boulding introduced the "bathtub theorem." Illustrating Economics: Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms is a collection of similar instances and, as such, it is fun.The reader should be advised that the book contains traps. Boulding coats his ideas with sugar to please his audience as well as promote consumption. He describes peace as "a drab girl with an olive branch corsage whom no red-blooded American (or Russian) could conceivably warm up to." The reader smiles at the recognition of the truth inherent within the image and ponders the irony of why so fine a state as peace should be regarded as dull, and so ugly a condition as war should be regarded as romantic. This book is for enjoyment, but it should carry the following warning: Caution-Reading this may be stimulating to your intellect.

Sources^*

*BE: Beyond Economics, by Kenneth Boulding (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968; paperback, 1970.)

CP: Kenneth E. Boulding/ Collected Papers (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, Vols. I and II [edited by Fred R. Glahe], 1971; Vol. Ill [edited by Larry Singell], 1973; Vol. IV [edited by Larry Singell], 1974; Vol. V [edited by Larry Singell], 1975).

“Economie Analysis and Agricultural Policy,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 13, 3 (Aug. 1947): 436-46. CP I, pp. 219-231.

“Is Economics Necessary?” Scientific Monthly, 68, 4 (Apr. 1949): 235-40. BE, pp. 235-240; CP I, pp. 249-261.

“Goals of Economic Life,” unpublished verse.

“Defense and Opulence: The Ethics of International Economics,” American Economic Review, 41, 2 (May 1951): 210-20. CP I, pp. 313-325.

“The Busted Thermostat,” verse, Michigan Business Review, 4, 6 (Nov. 1952): 25-26.

Review of Norbert Wiener, “The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society,” Econometrica, 20, 4 (Oct. 1952): 702.

The Organizational Revolution: A Study in the Ethics of Economic Organization (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953; paperback edition: Quadrangle Books, 1968).

“The Principle of Personal Responsibility,” Review of Social Economy, 12, 1 (Mar. 1954): 1-8. BE, pp. 210-18. CP IV, pp. 11-20.

“The Conservationist’s Lament; The Technologist’s Reply,” verse, Population Bulletin (Aug. 1955): 70; also in Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, ed. William L. Thomas, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, for the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the National Science Foundation, 1956), p. 1087.

“In Defense of Statics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69, 4 (Nov. 1955): 485-502. CP I, pp. 465-484.

“Parity, Charity, and Clarity: Ten Theses on Agricultural Policy,” Michigan Daily (Ann Arbor), Oct. 16,1955, p. 3. CP III, pp. 121-125.

“Economics: The Taming of Mammon,” in Frontiers of Knowledge in the Study of Man, ed. Lynn White, Jr. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), pp. 132-149. BE, pp. 26-42.

“General Systems Theory: The Skeleton of Science,” Management Science, 2, 3 (Apr. 1956): 197-208. BE, pp. 197-208. CP IV, pp. 33-46.

The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956; paperback edition, 1961).

“Some Contributions of Economics to the General Theory of Value,” Philosophy of Science, 23,1 (Jan. 1956): 1-14. CP II, pp. 1-16.

“Economic Theory: The Reconstruction Reconstructed,” in Segments of The Economy — 1956: A Symposium (Cleveland, Ohio: Howard Allen, 1957), pp. 8-55. CP II, pp. 35-85.

“A New Look at Institutionalism,” American Economic Review, 47, 2 (May 1957): 1-12. CP II, pp. 87-100.

“The Brandywine River Anthology,” verse, Michigan Business Review, 10, 2 (Mar. 1958): 7-9.

Principles of Economic Policy (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1958).

“The Knowledge of Value and the Value of Knowledge,” in Ethics and the Social Sciences, ed. Leo R. Ward (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 1959), pp. 25-42. CP IV, pp. 85-104.

“Organizing Growth,” Challenge, 8, 3 (Dec. 1959): 31-36. CP IV, pp. 105-112.

“The Domestic Implications of Arms Control,” Daedalus, 89, 4 (Fall 1960): 846-59. CP V, pp. 63-78.

“Night Thoughts From My Own Couch,” unpublished verse.

“The Little Casket Maker’s Lament,” unpublished verse.

“The U.S. and Revolution,” in The U.S. and Revolution: An Occasional Paper on the Free Society (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1961), pp. 4-7. CP V, pp. 91-96.

“Where Do We Go From Here, If Anywhere?” in Proceedings of the Fourteenth National Conference on the Administration of Research (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Memoirs of a Pre-Beatle-Liverpudlian American
• Human Nature
• Youth and Age
• Education
• Society
• Ethics and Common Sense
• Truth and Knowledge
• Economies, the Economy, and the Economic Man
• Corporations and Other Organizations
• Government and Politics
• Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism
• Foreign Affairs
• Nations and History
• War and Peace
• Science and Technology
• Evolution, Ecology, and Spaceship Earth
• The Future
• Sources