Kenneth Boulding: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

By R. Scott

This book summarizes the life and work of economist Kenneth E. Boulding. Boulding was a prolific writer, teacher and Quaker. Starting his career as an orthodox Keynesian economist, he eventually adopted a transdisciplinary approach to economic topics including peace, conflict and defense, environmental problems, human betterment and evolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Nov 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781137034380

Book preview

1

An Introduction to Boulding

Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910–1993) had a charismatic personality. He published hundreds of articles and dozens of books on topics including economics, religion, peace, ecology, evolution, grants, and ethics. He also published three volumes of poetry and was a gifted painter. He grew up an only child in a working-class family in Liverpool, England. His parents were loving and devout Methodists. Boulding committed himself early in life to Christianity. Growing up during World War I had a significant impact on his beliefs. He became a pacifist at an early age. In high school, he discovered the Society of Friends (Quakers) and joined while in his first year of college at Oxford University—which influenced him both personally and professionally for the rest of his life (Boulding, 1992b, p. 73). Boulding’s humble beginnings did not limit his intellectual capabilities. He did develop in early childhood a severe stutter that remained with him the rest of his life. Regardless, he received scholarships to the best schools in Liverpool, which led to his winning a scholarship to Oxford to study chemistry. During his first year at Oxford he switched to economics.

Boulding was trained in a traditional way by reading Marshall’s Principles of Economics, Pigou’s The Economics of Welfare, Cassel’s The ­Theory of Social Economy, and Hawtrey’s The Economic Problem (Boulding, 1989b, p. 369). In his last year as an undergraduate (1931), he wrote a paper titled The Place of the ‘Displacement Cost’ Concept in Economic Theory (1932), which was published in The Economic Journal under the editorship of John Maynard Keynes. In fact, Keynes accepted it after writing some extensive comments suggesting revisions. It was a most extraordinary piece of courtesy towards an unknown Oxford undergraduate (Boulding, 1989b, p. 370). In 1931, Boulding read Keynes’s Treatise on Money and was thereafter a Keynesian economist. Besides Keynes, though, Adam Smith was Boulding’s intellectual hero. After graduating from Oxford with first class honors, Boulding spent another year on scholarship doing graduate work. Then he won a commonwealth fellowship to the University of Chicago; while there he worked with Jacob Viner, Henry Schultz, and Frank Knight. Knight, in particular, had a profound impact on Boulding’s thinking. Knight also had an effect on Boulding professionally, when several years later he published a paper titled The Theory of Investment Once More: Mr. Boulding and the Austrians that commented on some of Boulding’s earlier work at Chicago. Boulding remarked that this paper put him in such good company he did not need to get a PhD—and he never did. After his first year in Chicago, Boulding’s father died. He went back to Liverpool to get his father’s affairs in order and to make sure his mother was well taken care of. When Boulding returned to America, he studied with Joseph Schumpeter at Harvard University. But after the first semester, Boulding fell ill with pneumonia and was hospitalized. After recovering, he returned to Chicago to finish his fellowship. Boulding stated several times that he learned much from Schumpeter and that Schumpeter had a great impact on him (Mott, 1992, p. 358). After his second fellowship year ended, Boulding returned to England, as was required by the fellowship. Teaching jobs were scarce in England at the time, and the only job he could get was at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He was not paid well and the environment was stifling compared to the progressive environment at Chicago. His time there was not a complete waste, however, because he learned about accounting, which changed his thinking dramatically in terms of consumption, production, and stocks and flows. This knowledge would permeate much of his later writing.

While in Philadelphia at the World Conference of Quakers in 1937, Boulding learned of a job at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York; he accepted it and stayed in America for the rest of his life. During his first two years at Colgate, Boulding wrote his bestselling textbook Economic Analysis (1941a), which would go through four editions and gain him considerable notoriety. In the same year (almost to the day) that his textbook was published, he met Elise Bjorn-Hansen at a Quaker meeting in Syracuse, New York. She was 21 (Boulding was 31). They married within three months of meeting each other. Boulding left Colgate to work for the League of Nations, but, after he and Elise published a Quaker pamphlet advocating pacifism, he was forced to leave. They ended up at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, for one year, where he wrote The Economics of Peace (not published until 1946). After that year, he received an offer at Iowa State College in Ames. He was hired to become a labor economist, which he knew nothing about, but he enjoyed learning about labor markets. It was during his time at Iowa studying labor markets that he realized economics alone could not answer many questions about social problems. It takes a mixture of all the social sciences (and other sciences) to tackle complex social issues.

Economic problems have no sharp edges; they shade off imperceptibly into politics, sociology, and ethics. Indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the ultimate answer to every economic problem lies in some other field. Economics is the skeleton of social science; the backbone and framework without which it degenerates into an amorphous jellyfish of casual observation and speculation. But skeletons need flesh and blood; and the flesh and blood of economic problems can only be found in the broader fields (Boulding, 1946, p. 237).

Boulding believed this realization ruined him as a traditional economist because he could no longer focus solely on economics. In his last year at Iowa, Boulding wrote A Reconstruction of Economics (1950), which was the first presentation (to my knowledge) of the economy as an ecological system. Also during these years, Boulding became a US citizen. Soon after this, he accepted a position at the University of Michigan to further his efforts of integrating the social sciences.

After arriving at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1949, Boulding learned he had won the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded by the American Economic Association to an American economist under the age of forty who has made a significant contribution to economics. This was a major accomplishment and vaulted Boulding’s already high status in the profession. Interestingly, however, Boulding was already moving in a nonmainstream direction. In particular, more of his religious ­thinking became imbued in his economic thinking—about which he wrote, I have lived most of my life on the uneasy margin between ­science and religion (Boulding, 1974a, p. 4).

Boulding’s ideas about integrating the social sciences took over his mind, and he spent less time on pure economics and more time on understanding systems. It was Boulding’s introduction to biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy that led to their cofounding general systems theory along with mathematician Anatol Rapoport and biologist Ralph Gerard while they were all working at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1954–1955. While at Stanford, they agreed to establish the Society for General Systems Research (now called the International Society for the Systems Sciences), and Boulding served as the society’s first president (1957–1958). Also during this year, Boulding and Rapoport started the Journal of Conflict Resolution (still an influential journal), which further led to establishing the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution at the University of Michigan. This pioneering effort had a tremendous influence on the field of peace research. Thomas Schelling (winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2005) made significant contributions to this field, especially with his book The Strategy of Conflict (1960), which played an important role in his winning of the Nobel Prize. In the preface of the first edition of this book, Schelling wrote: Three people have been most influential, probably more than they realize, in my continuing this work. They are Kenneth E. Boulding, Bernard F. Haley, and Charles J. Hitch (p. vi).

It was the work of Boulding and Elise (then a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Michigan) that largely developed the field of peace studies. Much of this work was the product of the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution. Both Kenneth and Elise Boulding were nominated at different times for the Nobel Peace Prize (Boulding was also nominated for a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences).

After his year at Stanford, Boulding wrote The Image (1956) by dictating the book over the course of nine days (a chapter a day), which was a sort of intellectual orgasm (Mott, 1992, p. 362). This book argued that behavior is the result of image (or knowledge) that one has from one’s history, environment, influences, etc. It is a concept Boulding used in most all of his later works.

Boulding spent two more years away from Michigan at different times during his 18-year tenure. His second year away was during the 1959–1960 academic year and was spent in Jamaica. During this time, he wrote his influential book Conflict and Defense (1962), which helped him understand the nature (good and bad) of conflict and how it gets managed. In some ways, this work is tied to his ecological economic thinking, as he presented in his essay Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth (1966). This was one of few papers he wrote on environmental issues, but it has garnered much attention since he first presented it and it remains an important component to the development of modern ecological economics (as presented by Herman Daly and others). So influential was this paper that the International Society for Ecological Economics (which publishes Ecological Economics) confers biennially the Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award to the scholar whose work most exhibits the spirit of Boulding’s transdisciplinary approach.

Boulding’s third year away from Michigan was spent in Japan (1963–1964). This was Boulding’s first trip to Japan, and he instantly adored the people and the country (he returned several times throughout his life). From this experience, he wrote his book A Primer on Social Dynamics (1970a), which led to Ecodynamics (1978a) and Evolutionary Economics (1981a). After his return from Japan, he taught a summer seminar at the University of Colorado at Boulder and returned the next summer to teach more seminars. He felt at home in Boulder, and, after going back the next summer, he accepted a full-time job with the university.

In 1967, Boulding moved for the last time to Boulder, Colorado. This was a difficult time for Elise because she had started writing her dissertation for her doctorate in sociology at the University of Michigan (which she finished in 1969 when she was 49 years old)—and this was soon after she made an unsuccessful run for Congress as a Peace Party write-in candidate. Boulding had secured a teaching position for Elise at the University of Colorado, but this compounded the difficulties because she still had three children at home (the oldest two were in college), and she now had to start teaching. It was a difficult time, but it proved successful.

The year after arriving in Boulder, Boulding was elected president of the American Economic Association.

He was billed by Business Week in 1969 as a heretic among economists who was chosen for the high post of president of the American Economic Association more in recognition of his achievements as the fairly orthodox Keynesian he was rather than as the social philosopher he has become. When I asked him if he thought of himself as an economist, he answered, "Oh, yes, I’m an economist—I ­must be—I’m President of the American Economic Association!" (Kerman, 1974, p. 22).

Boulding regularly remarked that he always considered himself an economist. Regardless of the reason for his appointment, this was a prestigious honor and further solidified Boulding’s reputation. Boulding’s presidential address to the American Economic Association on December 29, 1968, was published as Economics as a Moral Science (1969). In essence, the article argues that [t]he concept of a value-free science is absurd (Boulding 1969, p. 4). Boulding was a moral philosopher in the tradition of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. He believed this was the foundation of economics and should remain so.

Another important development for Boulding was his study of the grants economy. He used his three-part model of social systems (threat, exchange, and integrative) to further explain what he was modeling in Conflict and Defense (1962), which is essentially that there are ­conflicts that produce valuable outcomes and conflicts that produce negative outcomes. He argued economics dealt with the exchange system, and political science (and other disciplines) attempted to understand threats, but the integrative system is unique. The integrative system (which Boulding at one point referred to as love) is driven by grants: one-way transfers in which one person gives up something to someone else for nothing measurable in return. Boulding speculated that an increasing share of the economy comprised grants and that neither economics nor any other discipline had yet attempted to understand the significance of this element of our social system. As a result, Boulding recruited Martin Pfaff and they started the Association for the Study of the Grants Economy.

The University of Colorado had a mandatory retirement age of seventy. Boulding tried to fight this policy because he wanted to keep teaching at Colorado, but he was not successful and had to retire in 1980. This ended up working out well for him. In 1978, Elise had taken a teaching position at Dartmouth College (and Boulding joined her for a year), and she stayed there until returning to Boulder in 1985. Boulding’s emeritus freedom let him travel and teach at other universities. His postretirement years were productive. Richard Beilock published a wonderful book Beasts, Ballads, and Bouldingisms (1980) that contains drawings, ballads, and quotes (or Bouldingisms) from Boulding’s work up to that time—though Boulding was a much better artist than is displayed in Beilock’s book. Comparing the drawings in Beilock’s book to Boulding’s drawings and paintings included in his archives at the University of Colorado, one would think they were made by two different people. Boulding’s paintings are colorful and vivid—peaceful and optimistic. It is a shame Boulding did not publish more of his paintings and ­drawings—many would have gone well together with his sonnets.

From 1974 until 1982, Boulding published 63 articles in MIT’s Technology Review, many of which are interesting; but the most interesting may be Defending Whom from What? (1981b). Many people less familiar with Boulding’s work may be surprised to learn that for most of his years in America he was a registered Republican; but in this article in 1981, Boulding published his letter to President Ronald Reagan, which boils down to his following statement: I have been a member of the Republican Party in my mature years, believing that it stood for true conservatism and a movement toward peace. I now see it as a party of dangerous and untried radicalism, destructive of evolutionary progress and leading us to eventual disaster. I have therefore resigned my membership in it (Boulding, 1981b, p. 6). Boulding never seemed afraid of change, even in his seventies. When Boulding was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 1992, he knew it would be his last illness. In the months leading up to his death, he wrote 143 sonnets, which were published posthumously as Sonnets from Later Life 1981–1993 (Boulding, 1994).

Two important works were published posthumously. First was The Structure of a Modern Economy (1993), which Boulding wrote to give a topographical view of macroeconomic patterns over time (seeing the forest rather than the trees). He believed that, from the perspective of enough macroeconomic data and over a long enough time span, it would be possible to spot trends (hiccups, irregularities, etc.) that are invisible in the short run but become clear from afar. Boulding argued economists use deterministic numerical methods that are too narrow, and that it is often necessary to take a step back and look at the big picture. The second book published posthumously was The Future, which Boulding and Elise wrote long before but did not get published until 1995. This is a wonderful book that includes five chapters by Kenneth Boulding followed by five chapters by Elise Boulding—all dealing with the future, peace, and society. The differences and similarities between their perspectives make for a fascinating read and provide better insight into two influential thinkers and lifelong partners.

Boulding left a vast legacy behind. He was survived by Elise, 5 children, and 16 grandchildren (at that time). Besides his many writings, Boulding taught thousands of students. The following chapters of this book map the many meanderings of Boulding’s life, leading to the person about whom Milton Friedman once said, You may agree or disagree with what he says, but you cannot ignore it (Deming, 1993).

2

The Day the Liberals Won

Austere describes the upbringing of Kenneth Boulding. In his words, where he grew up would probably be considered a slum by current standards. His parents were both from working-class families. He never shied away from this characterization. He embraced his family’s working-class roots and was always sympathetic to the struggles of that class. His childhood home at Four Seymour Street was in the middle of Liverpool, England, which, in the early twentieth century, was working-class cosmopolitan. This was endearing in many ways to Boulding. His neighborhood had Jews, Belgians, Irish, and a black family. He believed that this exposure to diversity trained him well for the American melting pot he would enter early in his professional life. There was no doubt why he felt at home in America. It both suited his personality and reminded him of home. Before delving into the specifics on Boulding’s life, it is necessary to better understand his family background—to dig into the roots of his family tree and see what genetic commingling led to his life.

Bouldings and Rowes

Boulding’s mother, Elizabeth Bessie Ann Boulding (1880–1961), was one of three daughters born to George and Mary Rowe. George was a blacksmith and a Methodist lay preacher. Bessie grew up in the little town of Chard in Somerset, England. Her parents were poor by most measures, but growing up in the rural agricultural community gave her family members a sense of freedom. George was one of ten children raised in Devon by farmers who died soon after his birth. He worked as a miner for several years before apprenticing as a blacksmith. Mary’s family was better off. Her father was a trained, but unlicensed, practicing veterinarian. He was also a tippler, which did little to improve the family’s financial situation. His name was George Austen, which led to a family legend that they were related to Jane Austen—though the evidence makes this appear unlikely (Kerman, 1974).

At 14, Bessie left school and apprenticed for three years with a dressmaker. She was usually too busy reading to accomplish much sewing. Bessie was a lifelong bibliophile and poet. While it is difficult to discern precisely from where Kenneth Boulding inherited his literary interests, his mother was certainly a significant influence. Since dressmaking failed to capture Bessie, there was a great struggle with her family until they decided to send her to live with an aunt in London. While there, she worked for a family, raising their children. She learned French with one of the daughters and attended Methodist church services.

It was at this time that William Boulding was sent on a plumbing call to the family’s house where Bessie was working. They met and had a bond. She recruited him to play organ at her church. He was a Methodist recently baptized. But he was resolute in his religious beliefs. He became a lay preacher and Sunday school teacher (similar to his stepfather). But because Bessie was 18 at the time (Will was 22), and Will did not have much money, her family would not support their marriage. Their courtship lasted four years before they finally got married in May 1902. In Bessie’s autobiography (1984a), she recalls that she wore a brown dress on her wedding day and that her sister, who wore a cream-colored silk dress, looked more like a bride than she did. Because of this memory, she wrote to her son when he got engaged to Elise (his future wife) that she should wear a light-colored dress on their wedding day. Judging by the wedding photo at the University of Michigan Archives, Elise did, in fact, wear a light-colored dress for their wedding (probably her own decision).

Boulding’s father, William Couchman Boulding, grew up in Liverpool. There is little information on Will’s family. Kenneth Boulding himself did not know much (as evidenced from interview transcripts) of his father’s family. His father did not talk much about his family—for good reason. What is known is that Will’s parents were married only a few weeks before his birth. His mother was 30 and his father 36 when he was born. When Will was one-and-a-half years old his father died of a kidney infection. His mother remarried an irascible, abusive drunkard and philanderer (he at one point had two wives) who served as Will’s male household role model until his mother died of a stroke when he was 12. Shortly after this time, his stepfather threw him out of the house; so Will had to leave school and start making a living. The headmaster at his school wanted him to try for a scholarship, but his stepfather would not let him. In truth, Will wanted to be a minister, but it never happened. In typical fashion of the period and place, he adopted his father’s (and stepfather’s and stepuncle’s) trade as a gas fitter. When gas lighting became less popular, he transitioned into hot-water central heating systems and general plumbing.

Bessie and Will had a devout marriage. Will spent most of his time ministering. He was particularly focused on helping the poor and downtrodden in the area. This was his real work, whereas plumbing was of secondary concern. This meant that they were not financially well off, but they were spiritually fulfilled. Where exactly Will’s faith and goodness came from is difficult to determine, because his childhood was hard. Given his history, one would not expect him to be a loving, devout protector of the poor and disadvantaged. According to his son, William was quiet and even tempered. By all outward accounts, Will Boulding was a well-adjusted member of society. About Will, Bessie wrote,

[He] believed the Truth he preached to others. The Love of God, salvation from sin through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Power of the Holy Spirit to keep a man on the straight and narrow way, leading to Life Eternal. Through all the vicissitudes of life he kept this faith within him. He was not a good business man, in the sense that he made money, and when he died there was little he could call his own, but children loved him and young men wrote to me saying that anything which was good in them, they owed to him. His influence for good was wide and far reaching (E. Boulding, 1984a, p. 30).

Will and Bessie enjoyed reading and discussing books. They enjoyed conversations about world events. In fact, this was a constant source of enlightenment and engagement for the young and impressionable Kenneth Boulding while growing up. His parents were people concerned about the happenings of the world around them. But they were perhaps most concerned with their religious life. Will and Bessie were considered model citizens in their neighborhood. But Bessie always missed the rural lifestyle she grew up in. She loved to read and write, and she enjoyed long walks outdoors, which she would take often. Liverpool was the antithetical environment of her childhood home. When her mother learned she was marrying a man from Liverpool, she said Oh, you can’t do that. That’s as bad as going to America! (Boulding, 1989b, p. 366). Nonetheless, Bessie was determined to make a good life in a place more congested and dirty than she was comfortable. She had strong resolve in her marriage and in their commitment to the church. She was more of an extrovert than Will and enjoyed getting outside in either nature or social settings. In Bessie’s diary she writes often of a feeling of constriction in her life. Making a home was not her strong suit. She was less interested in cooking and cleaning than in adventuring and reading. But Bessie was not without her domestic skills. She wrote in her diary,

Will and I started our married life in