#1. What was the toaster project? What did Thomas Thwaites attempt to do? Was he successful and what is the significance of this example in the context of complexity and development?
The toaster project is a project in which Thomas Thwaites attempted to construct a toaster from scratch materials. He disassembled a whole toaster and looked at all of the components and tried to learn how it was created and then replicate that from materials that he obtained by himself. He was for the most part unsuccessful because the entire project took him months to finish and when he tried to use the toaster for the first time it burst into flames after moments. The point of this project was to look at how the economy and supply chain can be so important in providing goods, supplies, and leisure to the common person. It demonstrates that there are a plethora of necessary developments to have even the simplest appliances like a toaster for example. Development takes tasks that would normally be very complex to complete on their own and supplements various processes to make them far easier.
#2. According to Barder, how successful have economic models been at describing and predicting growth over the past 50 years? How did he use the Harrod-Domar model, the Solow model, the Washington consensus, and the Ajoakuta Steelworks to illustrate his point (reference at least two of the above)?
Barder argued that economic models have not been particularly successful at describing and predicting growth over the past 50 years. He described the Harrod-Domar model as the model in which you need a certain amount of capital and a certain amount of labor to produce a good. In discussing this model he points at the major flaws in it and why it cannot be applied as a blanket model for different countries’ economics. He says there are instances like South Korea versus Ghana where they are in very similar positions but only south korea grows exceptionally fast; he makes a point that this model is oversimplified. He then expands to discuss the Harrod-Domar model’s succesor the Solow model. This model is about the same growth in capital and labor and then “technical change”. Barder takes issue with the term technical change though because it is merely accounting for the missing variable in the Ghana South Korea argument and is not a legitamite explanation.
#3. Who was Steve Jones? What did he do at uni-lever? Was he successful? Specifically, what did he do in order to make an evolutionary jump forward? How significant were his results?
Steve Jones is a famous evolutionary biologist. A uni-lever he was designing a special modeled nozzle that would more effecienctly spray chemicals that formed into crystals and soap. He was very succesful in his endeavors because he took a different route than the rest of the mathematicians/scientists who were struggling to fully model the nozzle and optimize its output. Specifically Steve Jones took a more evolutionary approach: trial and error. He simply measured the performance of a variety of randomly generated nozzles and then took the best one and created more variants of that and measured them and had results 100’s of times better than the original nozzle. The scientists could not even model the nozzle he created, but by using a simple evolutionary technique like trial and error he was able to significantly improve the process.
#4. Who was Haile Sellasie? What is the significance of Kapuscinski’s book, The Emporer? According to Barder, how did Ethiopia exemplify the suppression of emergent systemic change? How do you think Sen would have described this suppression? Do you agree?
Haile Sellasie was an emperor of Ethiopia who would suppress the lower class and avoid their development to help ensure his position of wealth and power. Kapuscinski’s book talked about the Emperor’s practices and analyzes how the regime’s practices stopped societal and economic growth and it serves as a model of what to not do in trying to achieve development. Ethiopia exemplified suppression of emergent systemic change because they had a leader like this who prevented change. I think Sen would have described this suppression as political unfreedom and unfreedoms of choice because there are these limitations of an elite placed upon those outside of power. I agree with his description here and definitely think that politics play a huge role in the development and the growth of a country. Ethiopia is likely hindered by its past even today because of the losses it faced from the early tyranny.