Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.
Kenneth E. BouldingRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the relentless pursuit of economic growth, highlighting its detrimental effects on resources and the environment.
Kenneth E. Boulding emphasizes the obsession with continual economic growth as a fundamental flaw in economics. This addiction to increasing wealth often comes at the expense of environmental degradation and resource depletion, suggesting that a more sustainable approach is necessary for a healthier planet and society.
Themes
EconomicsGrowthEnvironmentResourcesSustainability
In practice
Example use cases
During a presentation on environmental policies, this quote can highlight the need for sustainable economic practices.
More from Kenneth E. Boulding
All quotes βAs long as man was small in numbers and limited in technology, he could realistically regard the earth as an infinite reservoir, an infinite source of inputs and an infinite cesspool for outputs. Today we can no longer make this assumption. Earth has become a space ship, not only in our imagination but also in the hard realities of the social, biological, and physical system in which man is enmeshed.
Kenneth E. BouldingRead
Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis.
Kenneth E. BouldingRead
Are we to regard the world of nature simply as a storehouse to be robbed for the immediate benefit of man? ... Does man have any responsibility for the preservation of a decent balance in nature, for the preservation of rare species, or even for the indefinite continuance of his race?
Kenneth E. BouldingRead
Similar quotes
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Frederic BastiatRead
I know firsthand that many employers who comply with other labor standards still hire the undocumented. Many businesses pay the minimum wage and have barely tolerable working conditions because there are sufficient undocumented workers willing to accept those terms. If we care about low-income workers in this country, we need to create pressure to improve their economic condition by reducing the supply of unauthorized workers.
Maria EchavesteRead
This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying, so to speak, the lifeblood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will.
Pope Pius XiRead
If you want a simple model for predicting the unemployment rate in the United States over the next few years, here it is: It will be what Greenspan wants it to be, plus or minus a random error reflecting the fact that he is not quite God.
Paul KrugmanRead
Obama had to save the banks, sure, but he didn't have to save the bankers and the shareholders and the bondholders. We broke the rules of capitalism in order to save those at the top - as we always do.
Joseph StiglitzRead
It is a sobering fact that the prominence of central banks in this century has coincided with a general tendency towards more inflation, not less. [I]f the overriding objective is price stability, we did better with the nineteenth-century gold standard and passive central banks, with currency boards, or even with 'free banking.' The truly unique power of a central bank, after all, is the power to create money, and ultimately the power to create is the power to destroy.
Paul VolckerRead