Boulding's evolutionary model applied: Printing press and high-bypass turbofan jet engine

The objective of this paper is to describe the qualitative model presented by Kenneth E. Boulding in four of his 30 books and to apply the model to two examples of economic evolution. It presents the macroeconomic visions of Boulding, and follows with two specific microeconomic examples of societal change each occurring in less than 50 years. The two micro examples are: (1) the developments of mechanical production of books and other printed material based on movable metal type in a modified wine press [1430 -70] attributed to Johannes Gutenberg; and (2) development of the high-bypass turbofan jet engine [1952-86] led by Gerhard Neumann at the General Electric Company.  Gutenberg and his team, estimated at 20 to 25 men, reduce the unit cost of a Bible to approximately one-tenth of a scribe’s hand written copy while increasing its quality by the introduction of proof reading as a part of the production process.  Neumann and his GE team, 31,000 employees in 1968, researched, designed, developed and produced the first high-bypass turbofan jet engine that provided an estimated 25 percent increase in thrust per unit of expended fuel. It was first used as engines for the USAF Galaxy C-5A and was designated TF39.  Subsequently, the TF39 was the prototype for the commercial CF6 family of engines introduced in 1971.  In the 1980s, the CF6 family emerged as the most popular engines worldwide for powering wide-body aircraft, including the Boeing 747 and 767, also the Airbus A300, A310, A339, A330 and other aircraft. The paper suggests each innovation was based on the existing societal knowledge but supplemented with new insight or image developed by a committed team with sufficient resources to obtain societally desirable ends. Furthermore, it proposes that the macroeconomic results are composed of the sum of the surviving microeconomic developments during a defined time period, and each of the two examples illustrate the microeconomic evolutionary process that have led to an increase in evolutionary potential of new macroeconomic conditions. Although two examples provided some 500 years apart do not built a strong case for power of evolutionary economics, hopefully it will encourage others to probe the issue more deeply.