Amartya

Kumar Sen
(Amartya Sen)
 Born in 1933 in Manikganj district
in British India (Now in Banglades) Development
 Currently, he is a Professor of as Freedom
economics and philosophy at
Harvard University.
AmartyaSen
 Contributions in areas of:
 Welfare economics
 Social choice theory
 Economic and social justice
  Economic theories of famines 
Indexes of the measure of well-
being of citizens of developing
countries
 His has authored more than 100
books - Translated into more than
30 languages
 Awards
 The Nobel Memorial Prize in
Economic Sciences in 1998
 The Bharat Ratna, the highest
civilian award of India in 1999
 The inaugural Charleston-EF
G John Maynard Keynes Prize in
Feb 2015.
 The book “Development as
Freedom”
Published in 1999
Key focuses are:
 Economic development entails a set of freedoms.
 Poverty is considered by lack freedoms.
 Real development is not simply increasing basic
incomes. Rather, it requires mechanisms that enable
the exercise of freedoms.
 Free markets is an essential method of achi

eving freedom. 4. Poverty as capability deprivation

 There are 12 chapters 5. Markets, State and Opportunity
1. The perspective of freedom 6. The importance of democracy
2. The ends and the means of development 7. Famines and other crises
3. Freedom and the foundations of justice 8. Women’s agency and social change
9. Population, food and freedom
10. Culture and Human Rights
11. Social choice and individual behavior
12. Individual freedom as a social commitment
 Introduction

What is development?
 Gross National Product?  Technological advance?
 Rise in personal inc ome s?  Social m odernization?
 Industrialization?

The world has unprecedented opulence and yet denies freedoms

to vast numbers of people.
 Introduction

What is development?
 Introduction

Social & Economic

arrangements Political &
e.g edu & health civil rights
facilities

poor economic opportunities

poverty and Tyranny
intolerance
neglect of public facilities

FREEDOMS
 Introduction
• Development is process of expanding the
substantial freedoms that people enjoy?

• Development requires the removing of major sources of

unfreedom
social deprivation

UNFREEDOMS

What is development?
 Development is an integrated process of substantive freedoms that connect
with one another.

 Freedoms of different kinds can strengthen one another.

 With adequate social opportunities, individuals can effectively shape their

own destiny and help each other.
 Introduction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3IQOb3Aw0M
 Introduction
Effectiveness and Interconnections

FREEDOM Free AGENCY of

people – Achievement
Measuring freedoms of development
that people have
enhanced

Evaluation Effectiveness
Reason reason

PROCESS
OF
DEVELOPMENT

• People are not passive receipts of benefits

but active agent and driving force.
 Introduction

Illustrations
(Development as freedom perspective)
1. Political freedom and quality of life
 GNP - less attention on the political and social freedom - Effective in contributing in
economic growth
 Income per head VS Freedom to live long
 Development analysis is relevant even for richer countries
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHamsi388tc)

2. Transactions, Markets and Economic Unfreedom

 Freedom of exchange
 Freedom to enter market
 Freedom of transaction are basic liberties
 Introduction

Illustrations (Development as freedom

perspective)
3. Organization and
values
Political parties
 Appreciation of the vital Civic institutions
roles of many different
institutions in the process
of development. Governments
Educational Process of and local
 Main values and social arrangements Development authorities
behaviors
 Shared forms
 Presence or absence
of corruption Market &
market related
organizations
 Introduction

Illustrations
(Development as freedom perspective)
4. Institutions and instrumental freedoms
There are 5 types of freedom, seen in this instrumental perspective:

Political
freedoms

Protective Economic
security facilities

Transpa-
Social
rency opportuni -
guaran - ties
tees
 Chapter 1
1. Processes and
Freedom of Processes
actions & decision
Oppor tunities

Unfreedom Inadequate
process
Inadequate opportunities

2 . Two roles of Freedom

Evaluation of
success and Individual
failure initiative and
social
effectiveness
Freedom
 Chapter 1
Opportunities 3. Income
and Capabilities Poverty
and Inequality

income deprivations
≠
capability deprivations

• European attempts to move to “self-help” social climate without devising adequate

policies of unemployment
make the “self-help” extremely difficult.

• It leads to losses of self reliance, self confidence, and psychological and physical
health.
4. Income and Mortality

• African Americans are more wealthy than people in much poorer regions such as
China, Kerala and Sri Lanka, Jamaica , Costa Rica. But their life expectancy is
shorter.
 Chapter 1

83 % - 75 aged 72 -74 % - 75 aged 67 % - 75 aged

The causal influences on the contrasts:

 Social arrangements
 Community relations e.g. medical coverage, public health care, sc hool education, law
and order etc.
• When William Petty initiated income and the expenditure method of es timating
national income, he was concerned “Common safety” and “Each person’s
particular happiness”.
5. Markets and Freedom
 There are two arguments in the market mechanism.
 Chapter 1
1. Denial of opportunities of transaction by arbitrary control, can be source
of unfreedom – Does not depend on the efficiency of market mechanism or any
analysis of the consequences.

2. Arbitrary restriction of the market mechanism can lead to a reduc tion of

freedoms because of the consequential effects of the absence of market.

 John Hicks - The liberal or non-interference principles of the

classical economists were not in the first place economic
principles but to apply to a much wider field

E.g. Slaves life expectancy and wages were just as high as many other
peoples and yet no-one chose that way of life when given a choice

6. Tradition, culture and democracy

 Issue of participation is central

 Economic development of a nation may lead to loss of traditions and
cultural heritage. Others may say it is better to be rich and happy than
impoverished and traditional.
 Chapter 1
 In the direct involvement, people should decide “what
should be best”:
1. The basic value – traditions they whish and not wish to followed
2. The persistence that established traditions be followedCulture

is Destiny – Lee Kuan Yew

Ending remarks
• The process of development is not essentially different from the
history of overcoming these unfreedoms.

• “Development as Freedom” is not so much to order all states or one

“complete ordering” but to draw attention on important aspects of
the process of development.
 Chapter 1
• The approach requires no such unanimity. Indeed debates on
important political arguments in the process of
democratic participation that characterizes
development.
 Critics
 Through capitalist especially neo-liberal capitalist perspecti ve, too
much attention on freedom (social issues) but not capital issue both for
individuals and community.

 The absence of an analysis of the power relations that cause and

reproduce underdevelopment through national and international
political institutions.

 Promoted the establishment of democratic ideals and free doms,

“unfreedoms” prolonged by contemporary neo-liberal developmental
models.

 Suggested to initiate debates and political arguments to tackle the

poverty and unfreedom in society. But there is no solid approaches that
he offered and no practical achi evements.
 Discussion question
 What is the key learning in your point of view?

 In the “Development as Freedom” perspective, how do you define

current development/ level of freedom of your
country?

 Among all different freedoms, which one is the most vital in t he lenses
of “Development as freedom”? Why?

 Do you have any disagreements? Why?

Resources
 http://currentaffairs.gktoday.in/current-affairs/charleston-efg-johnmaynard-
keynes-prize-2015
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen
 http://theviewspaper.net/development-as-freedom-amartya-sen/
 http://politics.news.mn/content/182031.shtml
 http://dannyreviews.com/h/Development_Freedom.html
 http://www.reallylearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/devel opment-as-
freedom1.pdf

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3IQOb3Aw0M
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHamsi388tc

 http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural -survival-quarte
rly/none/review-development-freedom
 http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue8-focus1
 http://www.cmi.no/publications/file/953-a-balanced-view-of-devel opment-as-
freedom.