A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Abstract

Boulding found freedom in his new role as emeritus professor starting in the middle of 1980. The final 13 years of his life were productive and he felt at home in Colorado (more so than any other place he had lived in the United States). He believed the 1980s was perhaps the most productive decade of his life (Boulding, 1992b, p. ix). This decade, however, was about more than simply increased production of output. The quality and depth of his work during this time may have been some of his best. Part of this late creative fervor was likely the result of being 70 years old and free from the confines of both university life and professional obligations. Having already served as president of the American Economic Association and only lacking a Nobel Prize for accomplishments in economics, Boulding was freer than at any other time to let his thoughts flow. Arguably, this freedom had been building since his time at the University of Michigan when he became a rogue economist writing on topics and in a style that were too broad for the mainstream to accept (or much acknowledge). But the tone of his books and articles during his last years were more forward-thinking than his earlier work. Whereas his textbook Economic Analysis (1941a) and other books such as Ecodynamics (1978a) and Conflict and Defense (1962) were compilations of his articles and espoused theories and models about how the world functioned at those times, these later works were more about the future: issues of human betterment, power, and moderation.