Don't go to great trouble to optimize something that never should be done at all. Aim to enhance total systems properties, such as creativity, stability, diversity, resilience, and sustainability - whether they are easily measured or not.
Kenneth E. BouldingThe 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
Kenneth E. BouldingReality, in its quantitative aspect, must be considered as a system of populations... The general study of the equilibria and dynamics of populations seems to have no name; but as it has probably reached its highest development in the biological study known as 'ecology,' this name may well be given to it.
Kenneth E. BouldingPhysicists can only talk to other physicists and economists to economists... sociologists often cannot even understand each other.
Kenneth E. BouldingAlmost every organization... exhibits two faces a smiling face which it turns toward its members and a frowning face which it turns to the world outside.
Kenneth E. BouldingThe organizer who creates roles, who creates the holes that will force the pegs to their shape, is a prime creator of personality itself. When we ask of a man, "What is he?" the answer is usually given in terms of his major role, job, or position in society; he is the place that he fills, a painter, a priest, a politician, a criminal.
Kenneth E. Boulding