A Reader’s Feeling on ‘Development as Freedom by Dr. Amartya K. Sen’
“No famine has ever occurred in a democracy!”
This Book, first published in 1999, was written mainly on the basis of the author’s speeches as a presidential fellow of the World Bank in 1996.
Main Essence of the Book
“Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states.”
To most people, prosperity is “having more money to spend for your needs” or “possessing more goods” or something similar. Wealth or economic prosperity is the most common indicator of development. Amartya Sen goes beyond what meets the eye in proposing an approach to development seen as a process of expanding people’s substantive freedoms. Sen elaborates on what he means by freedom and why the presence of freedoms has a positive causal relation to development while its absence has positive causal relation poverty.
The organizing concept in all of this is “freedom, seen in the form of individual capabilities to do things that a person has reason to value.” Of course, some may be cynical that when an economist says “freedom” they really mean “markets.” Sen does not underplay either the instrumental role of freely functioning markets in facilitating economic growth or the intrinsic value of individuals’ freedom to engage in voluntary exchange. In the book, Sen emphasizes five types of freedoms: political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantee and protective security. These freedoms are important and play dual role of evaluation and effectiveness. Freedom evaluates development process and freedom ensures effective development.
Organization of the Book
The book can be viewed in two ways: To reconcile the work of Sen as the eminent development economist and Sen as the social choice theorist and moral philosopher.
Writing in the former voice, Chapter 2 of this distinguishes between the ends and means of development, Chapter 4 discusses poverty as capability deprivation and chapters 7 to 9 survey famines, women’s agency and social change, world food production and the determinants of population growth.
Writing in the latter persona, the topic of Chapter 3 is “Freedom and the Foundations of Justice” while Chapter 11 analyzes “Social Choice and Individual Behavior” and the concluding Chapter 12 is entitled “Individual Freedom as Social Commitment.”
Chapter 10, “Culture and Human Rights,” draws on Sen’s reading of Asian history and religious thought and is aimed at disproving the proposition that there is something called “Asian Values” that is antithetical to the case for basic freedoms. Chapter 5 discusses the relative role of markets and the state in generating social opportunity. Sen is profoundly dubious of what he calls the new superstition of unbridled faith in market solutions and of radicalism in the cause of zero inflation. Chapter 6 emphasizes the manifold impacts of democracy as a system of government.
Freedom, Capabilities and Development
Sen holds the opinion that there exists a deep complementarity between individual agency and forces of social arrangements and this relationship has to be considered carefully in the evaluation and the crafting of development programs. Sen repeatedly underscores the idea that what people can positively achieve, i.e. individual capability, is enhanced by the presence of economic opportunities, political liberties, social powers, and the enabling conditions of good health, basic education, and the encouragement and cultivation of initiatives. Development therefore depends upon the creation of a stable cycle of a capability enabling environment and enabled individual exercise of agency with social impact.
Interconnectedness: Economic, Political and Social Freedom
Sen lays a good deal of stress on the proposition that a satisfactory conception of freedom must be fairly broad, and that its virtues are both intrinsic and instrumental. In general, he argues that political and social freedoms are both inherently desirable and conducive to economic growth. He notes, for example, that freedom of speech and democratic elections are highly valued, in themselves, by the world’s poorest people as well as by the richest — so political freedoms have to be seen as an intrinsic objective of development. All too often economists have limited their discussion to the impacts of public policy on economic growth, and Sen does argue that democracy is also valuable because of the instrumental importance of a responsive government for the development process.
Within a democracy — compared to other political systems — citizens are free to choose. They can actively participate in the procedure of governance and, furthermore, decide what norms are acceptable and what are not. When people are free to choose their political leaders and are free to actively participate then big social mishaps will not be ignored by the citizens. In a democracy politicians have an incentive to to perform, deliver over politicized issues. Natural disasters and man made disasters are very politicized issues in developed as well as developing countries. When a country faces calamities, failing to respond is a political failure for the politicians. Therefore, a famine will not happen in a functioning democracy because people in politics will do everything to prevent it.
Markets
Sen favors free markets compared with controlled ones. Free markets imply freedom to transact, freedom for the buyer to buy or the seller to sell, and — importantly- freedom to choose work. Sen discusses Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman’s Time on the Cross, a study of American slavery in 19th century. They argue that in some plantations average wage of slaves were higher than wages of unskilled labor in the most advanced countries. Also, some slaves were having better nutrition on plantations than the free agriculture workers in some parts of Europe. However, the — better paid and better fed — slaves ran away from the plantations at every given possibility. It was because they lacked freedom to choose what they wanted to do. Freedom to choose work is important. And it cannot be compensated by better income and better health care. Sen points out at that those who favor free markets do it because of efficiency of free markets when compared with centralized control economies. This may be so, but it understates the true value of free markets freedom to choose what one wishes to do. Even if centralized system was more “efficient” than the free market economy, even then, it would be preferable to choose the later than the former. Restricting free markets is, Sen believes, restriction of freedom itself.
Entitlements
Famines and overpopulation are common indicators of poverty. Sen argues here that these issues, if seen under the capability perspective, are dependent not only on economic structures but on political and social arrangements as well. Entitlement allows persons to establish ownership and command over certain kinds of commodities and this kind of capability is subject to these influences: (1) Endowment or ownership over productive resources and wealth, (2) Production possibilities like possession of knowledge and technology, (3) Exchange condition or the ability to exchange goods and services. Public policy here takes the form of drawing on different institutional arrangements: (1) state support in creating income and employment; (2) operation of private markets for food and labor; (3) reliance on normal commerce and business.
Sen also examines the power of entitlement as applied to women’s well-being and their free agency in effecting social change. Women have entitlements to their well-being and issues concerning the relative deprivations women suffer are important for social justice. These entitlements also add force to women’s voice and agency in participating in social and democratic activities, enhancing her social standing both within the household and in society at large. Women’s entitlement to free agency affect her role not only vis-à-vis men, but also in relation to children and her contribution to family and household governance. Women, having attained higher education, are qualified to be as gainfully employed as men and thus allow them greater participation in the labor force.
Sen’s Goal-Rights System
When Sen argues for substantial public expenditure on the education of the whole population, he does so both because it directly increases freedom (in the sense of the capability to self-consciously choose the life one has reason to value) and because it indirectly increases economic freedom by increasing the income at people’s disposal. Looking at population growth and food supply, Sen counters doomsday predictions of imminent food shortage. In another example, Sen portrays famine as a result of government mismanagement, and not of a decline in food availability. He says that famines are often directly linked to the existence of social and political injustices and that “no famine has ever occurred in a democracy.”
His argument for freedom is a powerful one, because it ties together both direct and indirect benefits. However, because his vision of personal freedom is one of individual capabilities, his vision of a politics that maximizes freedom cannot be one of a minimal state, whose only role would be to enforce private property rights. Since such a state would leave unprotected the capabilities of the disadvantaged, Sen argues strongly for the social responsibility of the state in education, health care, unemployment compensation, social assistance and the maintenance of adequate levels of employment.
Human Rights and Justice
Turning to human rights, Sen briefly rebuts criticisms of the concept’s legitimacy and coherence. He then treats at length the “Asian Values” cultural critique. Looking at historical examples, he argues that “Western traditions are not the only ones that prepare us for a freedom-based approach to social understanding” — and that diversity and pluralism are the norm, not the exception. Next comes some more theory, in the area of social choice and individual behavior. The conclusion to be drawn from Arrow’s Theorem is not that democracy is impossible, but that we need a richer informational base, while Hayek’s “unintended changes” may nevertheless be predictable.
Against the idea that selfishness is the only motivating force of importance, Sen stresses that capitalism itself requires other values, touching on business ethics, contracts, the Mafia, and corruption. In his final chapter Sen surveys the relationships between justice, freedom, and responsibility. And he reiterates the advantages of capabilities over narrower measures of human development. The idea of “human capital” is a step forwards, but is still too narrow in its restriction to effects on production; it fails to capture the direct contribution of human capabilities to well-being and freedom and their indirect effects on social change.
Conclusion
In awarding Sen his prize, the Swedish Academy of Sciences noted that he had ‘’restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of vital economic problems.’’ Sen raises more questions than he answers. No background in economics is required to grasp the underpinning message of the book — that quality of life should be measured by freedom, not just wealth. His arguments and viewpoints are in-depth and multi-layered. Either way, Development As Freedom is a monumental work, capable of redefining the manner in which the developmental dialectic asserts itself, and the manner in which human freedom is forever conceived.