Kenneth Boulding’s insights

Boulding’s insights.




(a) Boulding (1966) stated: ‘Anyone who

believes exponential growth can go on forever in a

finite world is either a madman or an economist.’



(b) Boulding (1971) offered three theorems on

human population limitations:

(1) The Dismal Theorem: If the only ultimate check

on the growth of population is misery, then the

population will grow until it is miserable enough to

stop its growth.

(2) The Utterly Dismal Theorem: Any technical

progress can only relieve misery for a while. As

long as misery is the only check on population

growth, the technical improvement will only enable

population to grow, and will soon enable more people

to live in misery than before. The final result of

technical improvements, therefore, is to increase

the equilibrium population, which is to increase the

sum total of human misery.

(3) The Moderately Cheerful Dismal Theorem: Fortunately,

it is not too difficult to restate the Dismal

Theorem in a moderately cheerful form. This theorem

states that if something else, other than misery

and starvation, can be found that keeps a prosperous

population in check, the population does not

have to grow until it is miserable and starves; it can

be stably prosperous.