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 created by a British design student, Thomas Thwaites. He decided he was going to attempt to make an electric toaster 100% from scratch, finding raw materials and turning them into parts. In order to complete the project, he needed a model of a toaster, so he went to Argos (a high street chain in Britain), which had about 101 different toaster options, and bought the cheapest one. Thwaites realized that there were about 400 parts made from over 100 different materials (steel, copper, rubber, mica, plastic) and tried to make each of these parts from scratch. He even smelted his steel in his rubbish bin because he didn’t have a steel smelter. Eventually, this didn’t end up working but after some research, he discovered that he could smelt steel by placing it in a microwave for half an hour. This part of the project was successful, although he failed in many other parts and had to figure out new ways to produce them. The process of making the toaster took him about 9 months and it cost him a large amount of money, since he was making each individual material and placing them into the parts he needed. Unfortunately, he was not successful as his toaster burst into flames because the copper wires were not insulated properly due to lack of rubber. The significance of this example is that no matter what you create, whether it’s a $2 or $200 machine, you are going to need a lot of equipment and technology in order to create the parts necessary to put the item together. Aside from its composition, you’re also going to need electricity, workers to transport the goods, etc. As Barder expresses in a very clear and concise way, “development is not an increase in output by an individual firm; it is the emergence of a system of economic, financial, legal, social and political institutions, firms, products and technologies, which together provide the citizens with the capabilities to live happy, health and fulfilling lives.”

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 Steel works to illustrate his point (reference at least two of the above).

Over the past 50 years, economic development has been present in many countries, even in those which have not experienced much economic growth. Those that have not achieved economic growth have improved their human welfare, such as their health, happiness and prosperity. According to Barder, “The last fifty years has been the most successful period in history in reducing poverty, increasing incomes, getting children into school, improving life expectancy, reducing hunger and malnutrition, and increasing access to clean water.” Barder used the Harrod-Domar model, which was a simple model that “said that to make a unit of output, you need to combine a certain amount of capital.” As claimed by this model, a firm will increase its production if it can increase both the amount of funds and labour it utilizes. In addition, Walter Rostow created The Stages of Economic Growth, claiming that development is a righteous circle, meaning that “when investment rises, capital stock rises, so output rises, leading to higher incomes, more savings, and so more investment.” The Solow model was another example that Barder used. This model proves that the separation between wealthy countries and countries in poverty is that “sub-Saharan Africa has had negative growth, while the countries of East Asia have had positive growth.”

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 (now a famous evolutionary biologist) was hired to create a better nozzle for the process of making soap powder although now the procedure is much easier, only mixing together many chemicals and forcing the mixture through the spray nozzle. One of the main problems was the design of the nozzle and the issue at uni-lever was that “fluid dynamics are non-linear, making it difficult to model.” Jones made an evolutionary jump forward and attempted to look at it in a different way. He made 10 copies of the original nozzle and twisted each one, tested which one worked best and repeated this process multiple times. After fourty-five generations, the nozzle looked pretty obscure and no one could design it the way Steve Jones did or even describe why or how it works. His results were quite significant because the nozzle ended up working much better than the previous ones.

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 a former Emperor of Ethopia from 1930-194. Part of the significance of Kapuscinski’s book, The Emporer is to explain in “vivid detail the last days of Emperor Haile Selassie, the last of the great feudal dynasty of Ethiopia which ruled until it was overthrown in 1974.” Kapuściński makes the former Emperor look bad by describing his daily routine as he would “stroll around the palace grounds feeding wild lions, while his secret police gave him reports from his network of informers. Servants were also with him at all times to carry his lambskin purse and another to polish the shoes of visitors. All in all, one couldn’t mention the poverty and hunger occurring in the countryside to the Emperor. Barder argues that Ethiopia “has been stuck a kind of a poverty trap. It had a rich and powerful elite, which benefited from the prevailing economic structure, which was able to suppress the co‐evolution of more plural and more equal economic and social institutions.” Amartya Sen would have described this suppression by critisizing the lack of freedoms people have and would have strongly argued on his view of development as freedom, as it can protect humans from natural disasters and social and economical problems by giving humans the opportunity to choose.