Economics meets philosophy in this wide-ranging manifesto that
identifies freedom as the agent of universal development as well as
its goal. Sen, the 1998 Nobel laureate in economics, points out,
among many things, that there has never been famine in functioning
democracies, including modern India, Botswana, and Zimbabwe
(democratic officeholders, unlike colonial functionaries or
dictators, are obliged to respond to impending shortages). High per
capita income does not necessarily mean longer life (poor residents
of Kerala, India, can expect to live longer than richer American
blacks). In much of the world, gender inequality causes distorted
male-female ratios (thus, there are "missing women"). Sen analyzes
a myriad of such considerations and offers a thoughtful synthesis
of welfare economics, political principles, and ethics. He asks
fundamental questions, challenges common assumptions, and takes on
diverse shibboleths. Lest you think a statement like "low income is
clearly one of the major causes of poverty" is foolishly
simplistic, hold on as he proceeds to demonstrate that there are
other important causes for "capability deprivation," as he
characterizes poverty. "Human development . . . is ah ally of the
poor," he says. "It is an indication of the topsy-turvy world in
which we live that the school-teacher or the nurse feels more
threatened by financial conservatism than does the army general."
The lucid insights are abundant as Sen marshals scores of thinkers
from Aristotle to Rabindranath Tagore, Confucius to Bentham. His
text is, as well, a sly review of his contemporaries and a
sagacious reappraisal of Adam Smith. Casual readers may find rough
going with a lexicon like "complemantarity" or "chosen functioning
vector," but the expansive discussion will surely attract
contemplative public policy practitioners. This learned book, more
diagnostic than prescriptive, convinces us of freedom's value and
utility in economic development. Less clear: how to bring freedom
about in the world. Sen's book must nevertheless be seen as a
seminal and influential text for students and makers of policy.
(Kirkus Reviews)
The main purpose of development is to spread freedom and its
"thousand charms" to the unfree citizens. The author explains how
in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence, millions
of people living in the Third World are still unfree. Even if they
are not technically slaves, they are denied elementary freedom and
remain imprisoned in one way or another by economic poverty, social
deprivation, political tyranny or cultural authoritarianism.
Freedom, Amartya Sen argues, is at once the ultimate goal of social
and economic arrangements and the most efficient means of realizing
general welfare. Social institutions like markets, political
parties, legislatures, the judiciary and the media contribute to
development by enhancing individual freedom and are in turn
sustained by social values. Values, institutions, development, and
freedom are all closely interrelated, and Sen links them together
in an analytical framework. By asking "what is the relation between
our collective economic wealth and our individual ability to live
as we would like" and by incorporating individual freedom as a
social commitment into his analysis, Sen allows economics once
again, as it did in the time
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