The Endless Frontier

Six Propensities, according to W. W. Rostow in The Process of Economic Growth (1953), can be seen at work in the evolution of modern society. They are the propensity to develop fundamental science, the propensity to apply it to economic ends, the propensity to seek material advance, the propensity to accept innovation, the propensity to consume and the propensity to procreate. There is a frame of reference in which these propensities operate : a frame which I am going to outline briefly.