The World is a very complex system. It is easy to have too simple a view of it, and it is easy to do harm and to make things worse under the impulse … - Kenneth E. Boulding

In view of the importance of philanthropy in our society, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to it by economic or social theorists. In economic theory, especially, the subject is almost completely ignored. This is not, I think, because economists regard mankind as basically selfish or even because economic man is supposed to act only in his self-interest; it is rather because economics has essentially grown up around the phenomenon of exchange and its theoretical structure rests heavily on this process.

Nothing fails like success, because we do not learn anything from it. We only learn from failure, but we do not always learn the right things from failure. If there is a failure of expectations, that is, if the messages that we receive are not the same as those we expected, we can make three possible inferences.

[if the automobile is replaced by public trans port] the social structure of cities will revert to the ecological pattern of 1880.