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Title: Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen ISBN: 0-385-72027-0 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 15 August, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (30 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: When moral philosophy and economics mix
Comment: There are few riddles more entrenched in the economist's mind than that of how economies prosper. Economists have been baffled by the miracle of economic growth and have offered various hypotheses to account for its existence: the expansion of markets, the enforcement of property rights, strong governments that invest wisely, Protestant ethics, Asian values, international trade, technological growth, people's savings, and so on.
While theories abound, the economic profession, smitten by the desire to quantify, has often been too narrow in its approach to development. Discussing what motivates economic growth usually entails the use of elaborate equations and complex graphs. "Development as Freedom" is a both welcoming exception to that rule, and a direct challenge to it.
The thesis that Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics, puts forward is that freedom is and should be both the means and the ends of development. The former (that freedom promotes development) flies in the face of conventional wisdom that prioritizes economic growth over political enfranchisement. Yet Mr. Sen defends with eloquence, both theoretical and empirical.
As for the latter, Mr. Sen offers an alternative to the "growth per capita" approach to economic development. Development, Mr. Sen contends, should be a process by which people can live the lives they have reason to value. This thesis can be traced back to the writings of the classical economists, and more recently to Frederick Hayek and Peter Bauer. But one would be hard pressed to find policy makers today speaking in terms of enhancing people's freedoms rather than merely increasing their incomes.
In the end, "Development as Freedom" is probably the most ambitious work on development economics in last quarter century. It shares with other classics an attempt to encompass the various processes of economic development under one theme-in this case, freedom. Yet, what is remarkable is not how much Mr. Sen has brought in under the umbrella of freedom, but how little he has left out.
Rating: 5
Summary: valuable contribution to the dialogue on development
Comment: Development is a worldwide, ongoing dialogue, and Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen makes a valuable contribution to it. He argues for the position that development is ideally conceived in terms of building a society that in its social, political, and economic institutions allows the individual to maximize the exercise of "substantive freedoms--the capabilities to choose a life one has reason to value" (p. 74). In this view, individual agency is both the means and end of development. Means, in the sense that "greater freedom enhances the ability of people to help themselves and also to influence the world, and these matters are central to the process of development" (p. 18). End, in the sense that "the success of a society is to be evaluated, in this view, primarily by the substantive freedoms that the members of the society enjoy" (p. 18). He calls this conception "development as freedom."
It is not novel. Indeed, Sen squarely locates in the liberal tradition flowing from the eighteenth-century philosophes. However, Sen makes an eloquent case for his own uniquely nuanced interpretation. He recalls the finest traditions of the classical orator, drawing on his unquestionable economic expertise, broad knowledge, and warm humanity.
The crux of his argument lies in what he believes "substantive freedoms" consist. He defines freedom in a negative way, what he calls "unfreedoms," as "elementary capabilities like being able to avoid such deprivations as starvation, undernourishment, escapable morbidity and premature mortality" (p. 36). He also defines freedom in a positive way, giving examples of "freedoms associated with being literate and numerate, enjoying political participation and uncensored speech" (p. 36).
There is little dispute that "substantive freedoms" generally work together, synergistically, in advancing development, so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Sen cites very poor countries like India, Botswana, or Zimbabwe, in which he believes the establishment of democracy has successfully thwarted famine, while in Maoist China, in sharp contrast, massive famines arose in the fifties despite its superior economic performance vis-à-vis India. He also cites the well-known inverse correlation between higher female literacy rates and lower child mortality rates.
But there is some debate about whether the expansion of political freedoms, specifically, go hand-in-hand with the growth of economic benefits, that is, in Sen's framework, economic freedoms. Here is the real bone of contention. Sen argues against what is known as the "Lee thesis," meaning the claim that authoritarian regimes, with concomitant restriction of civil and political rights, purportedly have some advantage over democratic regimes in promoting economic advancement. He devotes two chapters--"The Importance of Democracy" and "Culture and Human Rights"--to rebutting this position, and in my opinion, they are the most important part of the book. But Sen is never entirely successful in his rebuttal because at one point he concedes:
...Systematic empirical studies give no real support to the claim that there is a general conflict between political freedoms and economic performance. The directional linkage seems to depend on many other circumstances, and while some statistical investigations note a weakly negative relation, others find a strongly positive one (p. 150).
Sen does not adequately account for the unusual success of the East Asian economies--we must include Japan here--as prospective models in the transition toward development. There may indeed be undisclosed factors operating among these cultures, perhaps even a communal ethos working in a manner distinct from the individualistic ethos on which Sen's conception of development is based.
Sen's objective is to contribute to the dialogue on development. In his words, his motivation is "to draw attention to important aspects of the process of development, each of which deserves attention" (p. 33). In this endeavor, he is eminently distinguished.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Political Economy
Comment: In Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen tells us that the process of development is best understood as expansion of the freedoms that people enjoy in five spheres: political, economic, social, transparency (in the sense that important information is available to the public), and personal security. Each of these types of freedoms reinforce one another and contribute to outcomes such as higher incomes, better health, and longevity. Sen quotes Peter Bauer, an iconoclast in the development field, as saying that "I regard the extension of the range of choice, that is, an increase in the range of effective alternatives open to the people, as the principle objective and criterion of economic development; and I judge a measure principally by its probable effects on the range of alternatives open to individuals."
Sen points out that markets are not simply a means to an end but rather a fundamental freedom. All people want to enter into exchanges with others, and this is how people everywhere behave unless they are prevented from doing so. Sen shows that markets are not an expression of rapacious self-interest but rather are dependent on virtues such as trust and rectitude. Seen in this light, market exchanges are an expression of deep human needs. Yet Sen realizes that markets have limitations and he argues for non-market decisions to optimally provide for education, health care, protection of the environment, and prevention of the grossest inequalities in income distribution.
As an illustration of the interrelationships between the different types of freedoms, and between these freedoms and economic outcomes, Sen explains the Asian economic crises of the late 1990s as partly a result of a lack of transparency: that is, a lack of public participation in reviewing financial and business arrangements. Had they been able to, members of the public likely would have demanded greater transparency and the crises might have been averted; however, authoritarian political arrangements prevented effective demands for transparency. And, once the crises struck, the response of governments in the region was inadequate. Had these governments been democratically accountable, they would have responded more quickly and forcefully to boost employment and otherwise cushion the impact of the crises on the poorest members of their societies.
Sen, the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in economic science, has aimed this work at a general audience. For specialists, though, the book offers an extended discussion of methodological issues introduced by Sen's view of development as freedom, more than 50 pages of end notes, and an index of names and subjects. This book will be an adventure for readers interested in the greatest problem us at the outset of the 21st century: how can the poorest people in the world live better lives?
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