[Petronski]

That is, the innovation in question is simply figuring out how to make a lot of Macs economically enough to be able to make a profit in the market.

It was a question of engineering, not economics. You don't know what you're talking about.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

That is, the innovation in question is simply figuring out how to make a lot of Macs economically enough to be able to make a profit in the market.

It was a question of engineering, not economics. You don't know what you're talking about.

economically

1. in a thrifty or frugal manner; with economy.
2. as regards the efficient use of income and wealth: economically feasible proposals.
3. as regards one's personal resources of money: He's quite well off economically.

Making things economically in America is of course an engineering problem; I had no other thought.

But since you raise the issue, that is only true if you are in an economy which allows the risk of development to be undertaken. In hindsight, there is no risk associated with the development of the Mac; in prospect there seemed to be a lot of risk. Actually, it was a moderate risk in the sense that individuals (operating in a corporation) could finance the development; big risks like Apollo programs and wars are things that only governments can do. And the Soviet system was designed to be risk-averse in small things like developing a Mac. Only in mass engineering projects did Stalin lay down the dictum, "Make no small mistakes."

So the Mac could be developed in America, and especially in Silicon Valley. It could not have been developed in the USSR because the inherent inability of its "deciders" to take small risks assured that the USSR could not lead the way in new, nonmilitary, technology (and even in military innovation, it had limitations). The American model of making small mistakes - mistakes that can at most only seem tragic for the people who committed fully to the ideas in the belief that they would pay off big - is far more dynamic and suited to the furtherance of progress.

So, strictly in the American context, development of the Mac was an engineering problem. In the larger global context, having an economy able to generate people willing and able to risk that development is a problem of "political economy," as the field of economics was formerly designated.