J. Social Biol. Struct. 198l 4, 145-194

Kenneth Boulding's Ecodynamics A symposium on Ecodynamics: A New Theory o f Societal Evolution. By

Kenneth E. Boulding. Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1978, 367 pp. $I 5.00.

Preface

The following symposium is based upon Ecodynamics by Kenneth Boulding. The Editors chose it for extended commentary at the suggestion of a large group of advisors. It represents a cross disciplinary approach to social and biological structures, and one of our purposes is to encourage such research.

Harvey Wheeler James F. Danielli

Ecodynamics: where Boulding's reach exceeds his grasp

What if a mature, accomplished William Shakespeare had just written Titus Andronicus and then pointed to it as a grand synthesis of his life's work? Would your review call it Much Ado About Nothing? Clearly, the metaphor is not entirely inappropriate, since Kenneth Boulding is one of the Shakespeares of today's social science, and a Renaissance man of some note. In Ecodynamics, he seeks to develop 'an evolutionary interpretation of human history as a continuation, though in a more complex pattern, of the long history of biological and even pre-biological evoluation. It is seen in terms of ecological interaction, population dynamics, and the production of phenotypes from genotypes' (p. 211). It is rather a grandiose, self-styled goal toward which he sets out, introduced as 'at least an approximation of many different sciences' (p. 18). And part of it is even presented as Revelation: 'I believe I have been fortlanate enough to have enjoyed a vision of a great pattern of an unfolding universe' (p. 19). Is it fair to criticize someone else's vision? Is it even possible? It takes intellectual arrogance to write a book, and this Boulding has, in delightful abundance. I am reminded of a somewhat hardheaded Gregory Bateson: a great swashbuckling intellect who, seeking boldly to paint in strokes on a wide canvas, comes close to making great art. If he misses, it is because of errors in detail, certainly not deficiency of scope.

Boulding's vision relates what he sees as the three great levels of evolutionary process: physical, biological and societal. Land, labor and capital of classical economics is replaced with the 'KEM saga' of Know-how, Energy and Materials (as in DNA, ATP and proteins), while David Riccardo spins in his grave. The resulting insights are sometimes striking and often flip-flop between the trivial and the profound: 'Just as the biosphere could not have produced a human being ten million years ago because it did not have the know-how, the social system could not have produced an automobile a hundred years ago because it did

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