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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.

Kenneth E. Boulding

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Kenneth E. Boulding
Age: 83 †
Born: 1910
Born: January 18
Died: 1993
Died: March 18
Author
Economist
Philosopher
Poet
University Teacher
City of Liverpool
Kenneth Ewart Boulding
Example
Forests
Swamps
System
Concept
Analogy
Society
Concepts
Ecosystems
Using
Analogies
Calling
Ecological
Merely
Examples
General
Biological
Fields
Systems
Ecosystem

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The discounting presumably is to be done for each period of time at that rate of interest which represents the alternative cost of employing capital in the occupation in question that is, at the rate which the entrepreneur could obtain in other investments
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Consumption is the death of capital, and the only valid arguments in favor of consumption are arguments in favor of death itself.
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One advantage of exhibiting a hierarchy of systems in this way is that it gives us some idea of the present gaps in both theoretical and empirical knowledge. Adequate theoretical models extend up to about the fourth level, and not much beyond. Empirical knowledge is deficient at practically all levels.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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There is a quiet, open place in the depths of the mind, to which we can go many times in the day and lift up our soul in praise, thankfulness and conscious unity. With practise this God-ward turn of the mind becomes an almost constant direction, underlying all our other activities.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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Even personal tastes are learned, in the matrix of a culture or a subculture in which we grow up, by very much the same kind of process by which we learn our common values. Purely personal tastes, indeed, can only survive in a culture which tolerates them, that is, which has a common value that private tastes of certain kinds should be allowed.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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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.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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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.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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[The integrative system] deals with such matters as respect, legitimacy, community, friendship, affection, love, and of course their opposites, across a broad scale of human relationships and interactions.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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[In science any model depends on a pre-chosen taxonomy] a set of classifications into which we divide the enormous complexity of the real world... Land, labor, and capital are extremely heterogeneous aggregates, not much better than earth, air, fire, and water.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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[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.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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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.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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Economists are like computers. They need to have facts punched into them.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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The concept of a value-free science is absurd.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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The future is bound to surprise us, but we don't have to be dumbfounded.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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The perception of potential threats to survival may be much more important in determining behavior than the perceptions of potential profits, so that profit maximization is not really the driving force. It is fear of loss rather than hope of gain that limits our behavior.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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Knowledge exists in minds, not in books. Before what has been found can be used by practitioners, someone must organize it, integrate it, extract the message.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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With laissez-faire and price atomic, ecology's uneconomic, But with another kind of logic economy's unecologic.
Kenneth E. Boulding
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Economics has been incurably growth-oriented and addicted to everybody growing richer, even at the cost of exhaustion of resources and pollution of the environment.
Kenneth E. Boulding