The Toaster Project was a project by Thomas Thwaites who was trying to build a toaster completely from scratch. He was able to build the toaster, however, his creation did not prove to be successful once he tested it. The toaster exploded seconds after Thwaites plugged it into the outlet. Prior to being able to put together the toaster, Thwaites had to obtain Though the toaster ended up not functioning properly, Thwaites had to obtain all necessary materials for its creation. This exemplifies the need of an economy to be rich and sufficient enough to supply the necessary parts for endeavours that its people are in need of. Barder explained development as the emergence of different institutions that together provide opportunities.
Barder believes that economic models have not been successful at describing and predicting growth over the past 50 years. He provides the example of the Solow model, which was a neoclassical growth theory that introduced the third part to the existing relationship between labor and capital. Barder explains that there are many issues with this model because ,first, the introduced technical change is an unexplained variable, which makes it ambiguous and difficult to pinpoint, but also the idea that technology can be shared. Barder provides the example of Africa and Asia, in terms of how different these two places are, to support his hypothesis about the ineffectiveness of the Solow model. Barder also mentions the Washington consensus, which is known for the idea of freeing markets to help poor countries. In his explanation of why this model did not work, Barder convinces his audience that poor countries are not poor because rulers have the wrong views on how to run a country, but because poor countries have strong institutions in place that are run in ineffective ways because it suits the elite. Barder explains that the issues of poor economies must be addressed internally and that there is not much the outside countries can do, through aid, that would spur change, which describes the fallacy of the Washington consensus.
Steve Jones was an evolutionary biologist. He worked at a factory making soap powder, but was later asked to work on designing a better nozzle that the factory could use in its soap powder production. The issue was that the mixture must be forced out of a spray nozzle in order for the soap to crystallize and fall to the floor, however the dynamics of fluid are non-linear, and therefore make it difficult to understand how to design a better nozzle. Steve Jones did a trial and error method where he distorted the original nozzle multiple times to see which variation provides the best results, then he repeated his process on the best-functioning design from the previous round, and went on until he has created 45 generations of the nozzle. Jones’ work did not only create a nozzle that exceeded all productivity expectations, but his experiment portrayed an important idea about adaptations. One cannot expect to find the perfect solution on the first try because the best one comes through the process of trial, error, and adaptation.
Haile Sellasie was an emperor from the last feudal dynasty in Ethiopia. Kapuscinski’s book exaggerates the accounts of the emperor in his book to highlight the inequality of power between the people and the emperor, the corruption, and the hidden day-to-day lives of authoritarian rulers. Barder explains that by taking money away from the Ethiopian people and stopping any and all attempts towards a democracy and transparency of public institutions, the Emperor is able to stay in power. I think Sen would have described this kind of suppression as an unfreedom, which I would agree with. My home country of Kazakhstan still lives under a corrupt authoritarian government, even though the country is deemed democratic and free. People live relatively poorly, while all government figures are well beyond wealthy. There is also a strict rule in place against protesting, so any and all attempts of the people to get the country to a more democratic and fair state end in arrests and fines.