The social philosophy of Kenneth Boulding
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An abstract look at what ought to be growth, or whatever,
By Leah Osad (Second Peter, Chapter 2, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Beyond Economics: Essays on Society, Religion, and Ethics (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) (Paperback)
Kenneth E. Boulding was born long before the baby boom, became a professor, and was able to have BEYOND ECONOMICS published by The University of Michigan Press in 1968, a year after its final selection, `The Learning and Reality-Testing Process in the International System' was published in Journal of International Affairs Vol. 30, Issue 1, pages 1-15. Among the arguments for human sacrifice considered at the beginning of this essay was "The proposition that South Vietnam is a domino that has to be propped up by the dropping of napalm, the burning of villages, the torture of prisoners, and the sacrifice of American blood is a proposition that appeals to us much more strongly than these others; but it is being tested in much the same way as the Aztecs and the inquisitors tested their views of the world: by appeals to analogy, to self-evidence, and to the principle that if at first you don't succeed try more of the same until you do." (pp. 288-289).
Among the economic lessons learned by Boulding in his lifetime: The German and Japanese attempts to become great powers were enormously costly; but their ultimate failure provides us an even more striking insight into the realities of the present international system. (p. 293). After total military defeat and a complete loss of their great-power status, they have both achieved absolutely unprecedented rates of economic growth, far exceeding the growth rate of the victors. (p. 294). Strategic thinking about Nam was never too deep, but millions of Americans eventually served in Southeast Asia, either as one of the original 500,000 American troops or as one of their replacements. The baby boomers provided millions of people who were not rich enough to buy a better form of life for themselves right from the start, but who were smart enough to see that barking up the wrong tree is as bad as hosing vast amounts of money in the wrong direction. Even Boulding Perceived: If the price of national sovereignty is a nuclear war every generation or so, again I say, "to hell with it," for the loyalties on which national sovereignty depends will not stand up under these circumstances. The best form of loyalty to a hopelessly insolvent organization is to bankrupt it as soon as possible so that it may be reorganized into a viable form. (p. 126). We have spent too much time and energy in trying to find the best way of doing things that should not be done at all. We must now put a major effort in finding those things which should be done and which must be done if we are to survive. (p. 130). If Nam taught a lesson about economics, it was mainly that the almighty dollar is the greatest source of corruption on the face of the earth. The Soviet Union and Cuba had troops in some countries, but hardly as far from home as Uncle Sam's. Certain Communist and tribal social systems, which otherwise might have been able to survive without a vast amount of dollars, were converted into military systems that excelled at attacking each other. A secret CIA office in New York City was probably destroyed as a result of planes crashing into the World Trade Center office buildings on September 11, 2001 because a strategy of warfare that picked targets for maximum psychological impact was capable of blundering into genuine enemy airspace. Osama bin Laden might not have been the key person picking the targets for the activities of September 11 because each part of the plot depended on personal contact far more than it relied on the government of Afghanistan. Boulding is so general in his look at how systems operate that it is not obvious at first what BEYOND ECONOMICS / ESSAYS ON SOCIETY, RELIGION, AND ETHICS is really about. There are no index or notes at the end of the book. As things go, "In the theory of electrical circuits we may find clues to some baffling phenomena connected with the circuit flow of money." (p. 8). There you have it.
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