Mokyr 11
economics is based on the idea of balance, it doesn't
handle ongoing change well
could we understand technological change by using as a
parallel biological evolution?
- this is an analogy only, but the idea is that
the analogy might show useful patterns
- what are the parts of the theory of evolution
that we might use in an analogy?
- new variations appear randomly
- natural selection determines which
variations survive
- the analogy of a species in Mokyr's argument
is a technique for making a product
- he is seeing the idea as the key part of an
invention
- new ideas appear at random, but they are
selected according to the needs of society and cost
- sometimes older ideas will survive if they
are isolated and so protected from the pressure of
competition
- unlike culture, we can somewhat define which
versions of an idea are better: they have a lower cost for
producing the same goods or other measurable benefits
- evolution is a process of continuing change
- you might think that radical new technologies
could happen more easily than major biological mutations,
but new inventions often need other inventions before they
can come into use
- why might the analogy work--because both are
fundamentally about limited resources
Technology (and evolution) are path dependent
- once you have started down one path it constrains future
choices (p. 285)
- The direction of technological innovation is not
inevitable--there are different possible paths
- Mokyr also says that the technology that wins out is
usually measurably better than the other, but that does not
make the direction of progress inevitable
- in Mokyr's ideas macro-invention is fairly
random--something else could have been invented instead
- Mokyr quotes Basalla: "despite widespread belief that the
world could not be otherwise than it is... different choices
could have been make."
Mokyr is interested in the distinction between small
improvements and radical changes, between improvements within an
old technology and the emergence of a new technology.
What is needed for a macro-invention to survive?
- it has to be feasible with available technology
- it must be economically feasible--at least as efficient
as existing technologies (once it is developed)
- it needs a socially sympathetic environment==it needs to
fit our values
- it needs continued micro-inventions to make it workable
Micro-inventions come from purposeful search for
improvements, macro-inventions come from luck or genius
macro-inventions are less likely in complex interdependent
systems
they tend to appear in clusters, once the system is already
shaken up
or when the environment changes
Conclusion: technological progress should not be taken for
granted
but technology has given us steady improvement in our material
lives since the industrial revolution
technological progress is not inevitable in speed (it can
slow way down) or in direction