The Nature of Technology Kap 10 Flashcards
The economy evolving as its technologies evolve (10 cards)
How does Arthur redefine the economy, and why is this redefinition important for understanding technological evolution?
Arthur defines the economy as “the set of arrangements and activities by which a society satisfies its needs,” treating all purposive arrangements—markets, legal systems, hospitals, factories, banks—as technologies. Seeing the economy this way shifts it from being a passive “container” for technologies to a structure constructed from them, making it possible to trace how changes in technology actively re‑form the economy’s skeleton rather than merely altering flows within a fixed system.
In what sense is the economy “an expression of its technologies”?
Technologies provide the skeletal framework—the mills, markets, legal rules, payment systems—around which all commercial behaviour, production, trade, and decision‑making (the “muscle and blood”) organize. Because the economy “wells up” from these technologies and constantly chooses which new ones to admit, its very structure emerges from, and co‑evolves with, the technological collective.
What is meant by structural change in Arthur’s analysis, and how does it differ from ordinary economic readjustment or growth?
Structural change is a cascading re‑formation of the economy’s underlying arrangements—new industries, organizational forms, regulatory systems—not just price/quantity adjustments or incremental expansion. It unfolds as each novel technology calls forth complementary technologies and institutions, which in turn create new problems and niches, generating further layers of change.
Outline the typical sequence that occurs when a new technology enters the economy and drives structural change.
1. Replacement: The newcomer displaces older technologies performing the same task.
2. Readjustment: Prices, outputs, and combinations shift.
3. Component Use: The new technology becomes a building block inside other technologies or organizations.
4. Opportunity Niches: It creates new technical, economic, or social problems that demand solutions.
5. New Arrangements: Additional technologies, industries, or organizational forms arise to solve those problems—starting a fresh cycle.
Describe the British textile‑machinery example Arthur uses to illustrate cascading structural change.
The 1760s spinning and weaving machines displaced cottage handwork but needed scale, spawning the factory as a higher‑level arrangement. Factories demanded large pools of labor, drawing agricultural workers to mill towns, which in turn required worker housing and civic infrastructure, ultimately giving rise to industrial cities, labor laws, and unions. A single technological advance thus reorganized production, settlement patterns, legal norms, and class politics over more than a century.
Why does Arthur say that structural change is fractal?
Because each new “higher‑level” arrangement (e.g., the factory system) immediately generates subordinate needs—power transmission, materials tracking, bookkeeping, managerial methods—each of which spawns further sub‑technologies and sub‑arrangements. Change therefore branches recursively at many levels, much like arterial networks splitting into ever‑smaller vessels.
How does Arthur extend Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction?
While Schumpeter emphasized new combinations that disrupt equilibrium, Arthur argues that every novelty triggers an ongoing chain of accommodations and fresh problems, so the economy is not merely periodically disturbed; it is perpetually self‑creating and “roiling,” with multiple overlapping waves of change destroying and rebuilding structure from within.
What does Arthur mean by the claim “every technology contains the seeds of a problem,” and what are the implications?
Technologies solve specific needs but invariably introduce side‑effects—carbon fuels lead to climate change; nuclear power to waste disposal; air travel to rapid disease spread. These new problems open opportunity niches for yet more technologies, locking the economy into an endless dance of solution‑problem‑solution that guarantees continual structural evolution.
According to Arthur, why is it highly unlikely that technological or economic evolution will ever come to a halt?
Because
(1) human needs remain open‑ended;
(2) undiscovered phenomena will keep providing new design possibilities; and
(3) each solution breeds fresh problems demanding further solutions. Together, these drivers ensure perpetual novelty and forestall long‑term stasis.
How does Arthur’s view explain why economics as a discipline must continually revise its theories?
Since the economy is an evolving, multilayered structure whose patterns of organization shift as technologies mutate, static models soon misdescribe reality. Like observers glimpsing a battlefield only in the light of occasional flares (great theorists), economists must repeatedly relabel and reinterpret the scene because the underlying arrangements keep redeploying in the dark.
