Recent from talks
Kenneth E. Boulding
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Kenneth E. Boulding
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (/ˈboʊldɪŋ/; January 18, 1910 – March 18, 1993) was an English-born American economist, educator, peace activist, and interdisciplinary philosopher. Boulding was the author of two citation classics: The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (1956) and Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (1962). He was co-founder of general systems theory and founder of numerous ongoing intellectual projects in economics and social science. He was married to sociologist Elise M. Boulding.
Boulding was born and raised in Liverpool, England, the only child of William C. Boulding and Elizabeth Ann Boulding. His father was a gas fitter and a lay preacher in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and his mother was a housewife. Boulding's middle name Ewart came from William Ewart Gladstone, of whom his father was a great admirer. In his adolescent years Boulding became interested in pacifism and joined the Religious Society of Friends.
After attending Liverpool Collegiate School on a scholarship, Boulding won a chemistry scholarship to Oxford University at New College in 1929. He soon transferred to Philosophy, Politics and Economics. His economics tutors were Henry Phelps Brown, and Maurice Allen (1908–1988), who would become a director of the Bank of England in the late 1960s. Boulding obtained a First in economics in 1931. In his last year he wrote "The Place of the 'Displacement Cost' Concept in Economic Theory", which was accepted and published in The Economic Journal, after extensive comments by its editor John Maynard Keynes.
On a small university scholarship Boulding spent another year at Oxford doing graduate work, which resulted in a thesis on capital movements. While he was turned down for a fellowship for Christ Church, Oxford, in 1932 he did win a Commonwealth Fellowship to the University of Chicago. En route he became "quite well acquainted" with Joseph Schumpeter.
On the fellowship from 1932 to 1934, Boulding continued his economics studies at Chicago and at Harvard University. Although Jacob Viner encouraged him to focus on his PhD work, he studied with Schumpeter, took classes from Henry Schultz and Frank Knight, and wrote some of his own articles. At Chicago, he became friends with another graduate student, Albert Gailord Hart.
His studies with Schumpeter were interrupted by a spontaneous pneumothorax ('collapsed lung'). After recovery he spent the last six months of his Commonwealth Fellowship in Chicago, writing articles on capital theory. Two of those articles, "The Application of the Pure Theory of Population Change to the Theory of Capital", and "The Theory of a Single Investment", were published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1934–1935, and were the topic of Frank H. Knight's reflection[citation needed] the next year. After returning to the UK for three years, Boulding settled in the U.S. He was granted citizenship in 1948.
Under the terms of his Commonwealth Fellowship Boulding returned to the UK in the summer of 1934, and obtained a three-year position in economics at the University of Edinburgh. Academic life at the university seemed very dead to him, and he made himself unpopular with a speech to students that was published in The Scotsman with the headline, "Scottish University Sitting on Haunches for the last Fifty Years."
In those days Boulding was actively involved in the Quaker community, writing a pamphlet on nonviolent methods in 1936 and drafting a letter for the Friends to the prime minister, asking Britain to disclaim the "war guilt" clauses in the Treaty of Versailles and move toward a more just peace.
Hub AI
Kenneth E. Boulding AI simulator
(@Kenneth E. Boulding_simulator)
Kenneth E. Boulding
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (/ˈboʊldɪŋ/; January 18, 1910 – March 18, 1993) was an English-born American economist, educator, peace activist, and interdisciplinary philosopher. Boulding was the author of two citation classics: The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (1956) and Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (1962). He was co-founder of general systems theory and founder of numerous ongoing intellectual projects in economics and social science. He was married to sociologist Elise M. Boulding.
Boulding was born and raised in Liverpool, England, the only child of William C. Boulding and Elizabeth Ann Boulding. His father was a gas fitter and a lay preacher in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and his mother was a housewife. Boulding's middle name Ewart came from William Ewart Gladstone, of whom his father was a great admirer. In his adolescent years Boulding became interested in pacifism and joined the Religious Society of Friends.
After attending Liverpool Collegiate School on a scholarship, Boulding won a chemistry scholarship to Oxford University at New College in 1929. He soon transferred to Philosophy, Politics and Economics. His economics tutors were Henry Phelps Brown, and Maurice Allen (1908–1988), who would become a director of the Bank of England in the late 1960s. Boulding obtained a First in economics in 1931. In his last year he wrote "The Place of the 'Displacement Cost' Concept in Economic Theory", which was accepted and published in The Economic Journal, after extensive comments by its editor John Maynard Keynes.
On a small university scholarship Boulding spent another year at Oxford doing graduate work, which resulted in a thesis on capital movements. While he was turned down for a fellowship for Christ Church, Oxford, in 1932 he did win a Commonwealth Fellowship to the University of Chicago. En route he became "quite well acquainted" with Joseph Schumpeter.
On the fellowship from 1932 to 1934, Boulding continued his economics studies at Chicago and at Harvard University. Although Jacob Viner encouraged him to focus on his PhD work, he studied with Schumpeter, took classes from Henry Schultz and Frank Knight, and wrote some of his own articles. At Chicago, he became friends with another graduate student, Albert Gailord Hart.
His studies with Schumpeter were interrupted by a spontaneous pneumothorax ('collapsed lung'). After recovery he spent the last six months of his Commonwealth Fellowship in Chicago, writing articles on capital theory. Two of those articles, "The Application of the Pure Theory of Population Change to the Theory of Capital", and "The Theory of a Single Investment", were published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1934–1935, and were the topic of Frank H. Knight's reflection[citation needed] the next year. After returning to the UK for three years, Boulding settled in the U.S. He was granted citizenship in 1948.
Under the terms of his Commonwealth Fellowship Boulding returned to the UK in the summer of 1934, and obtained a three-year position in economics at the University of Edinburgh. Academic life at the university seemed very dead to him, and he made himself unpopular with a speech to students that was published in The Scotsman with the headline, "Scottish University Sitting on Haunches for the last Fifty Years."
In those days Boulding was actively involved in the Quaker community, writing a pamphlet on nonviolent methods in 1936 and drafting a letter for the Friends to the prime minister, asking Britain to disclaim the "war guilt" clauses in the Treaty of Versailles and move toward a more just peace.
Recent media