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A Review Essay on Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom

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© 2021 IJRAR February 2021, Volume 8, Issue 1 www.ijrar.org (E-ISSN 2348-1269, P- ISSN 2349-5138)

A Review Essay on Amartya Sen's Development as

Freedom
Muhammad Hashem Omari
Student at M.Sc. Economics, Mittal School of Business, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, India
Abstract: In the world we live in, improving the quality of life and human well-being and achieving economic
growth and development are the major goals of countries. In this regard, each country, especially the Third
World, has sought to formulate a particular strategy and policy. In the meantime, success has been greater
than those countries that have relied on public participation in formulating these important strategies and
decisions and have paved the way for community members to act as responsible and informed people. The
issue that has occupied minds above all is the relationship between freedom and development and the
interplay between these two phenomena, On the one hand, economic development brings more benefit to the
people of the community from amenities, education, health, etc., and spreads awareness among the people
and, on the other hand, the freedom to contribute to the development process contributes to the development
of social justice and equality of opportunity for individuals, Holds leaders and officials accountable to the
public and prevents the spread of economic corruption in society. These interdependencies make the need
for deeper reflection on the relationship between development and freedom more important. The development
and freedom debate has been raised by economist Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize winner in economics in 1998).
This economist proposes a new approach to this issue and looks at development as an extension of
fundamental freedoms. And he sees the ultimate goal of development as achieving freedom and sees freedom
as a measure of human quality of life. In this paper we want to have A Review Essay on Amartya Sen's
Development as Freedom.
Keywords: Development, Freedom, and Amartya Sen.
Introduction
A review of development studies shows that the promotion of freedom is both a goal and a means of
development. In other words, the nature of development and freedom is intertwined. These freedoms are:
political freedoms, equal economic and social opportunities, transparency and a guaranteed protection
system. From this perspective, therefore, development can only be achieved when the essential elements of
anti-freedom are eliminated. (Zheng & Carsten Stahl, 2011).
Despite the unprecedented increase in commodity abundance in today's world, many people's basic
freedoms are denied, but in some cases, the conspicuous absence of freedoms is automatically depending to
existence of poverty in any economy. These people are deprived of access to freedom in relieving hunger
adequate nutrition, treatment for treatable diseases, access to adequate clothing and shelter, access to safe
drinking water, educational facilities or efficient institutions to maintain peace and order. (Beyer, 2014).
In other cases, however, violations of liberty are directly the result of restrictions on the freedom of
social, political, and economic participation. Amartya Kumar Sen (winner of the Economics Nobel Prize in
1998) wrote Development as Freedom, in which he equated development with" freedom.
According to “Sen” development is a process that will promote the freedoms that people benefit
from. Development must lead to the eradication of factors that limit human freedom. These include poverty
and tyranny, lack of economic opportunities and institutionalized social deprivation, neglect of public
budgets, and criticism of the oppressive governments (Sen, 1999).
Amartya Sen's definition of development is the fiftieth year of the evolution of the concept of
development that encompasses all previous concepts. In fact, neglecting the role of human beings and human
capital is the main cause of the declining levels of economic growth in developing countries. Undoubtedly,
the need to achieve the above-mentioned capability is a Deep and vast knowledge at all levels of society.
(Sen, 1999).
Economic development includes the opportunities for all members of society with all kinds of "ethnic,
religious, religious," non-discriminatory characteristics to exploit economic resources for production,
exchange, and infrastructure purposes, and to allocate resources, Based on their ability and competence alike.
The opportunities mentioned are usually created by increasing GDP and increasing per capita income.
An overview of the history and history of development discourses in the last century, especially from the
1950s onwards, shows that, at the outset, indicators were purely material in nature, and slowly the scope of
development discourses shifted from economic to other areas. Cultural, political and social is included.
(Gasper, 2002).

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Michael Todaro has referred to freedom as the creator of development, but Amartya Sen in his book
Development as Freedom as a theory of development argued that freedom has a two-way relationship with
development and identified development as both a tool of development as well as a goal of development. So,
in this paper, we want to have A Review Essay on Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom. (Todaro, 1993).
Amartya Sen and his book (Development as Freedom)
Amartya Kumar Sen was born in 1933 in Santiniketan, Bengal, India. He received his BA in Calcutta in
1953 and went to England to pursue a doctorate in 1959 from Cambridge University. He began teaching at
Jabalpur University in Calcutta in 1956, but returned to England shortly afterwards and from 1957 to 1963 he
taught at the University of Cambridge.
Amartya Sen joined the University of Delhi in 1963 as a professor of economics, but returned to England
in 1970. He spent 1971-1977 at the London School of Economics and in 1977 became Professor of Economics
at Oxford University.
Amartya Sen was Vice President in 1983 and in 1984 Chairman of the British Econometrics Association.
In 1967, he was head of the United Nations Expert Group, which carried out a review of the "role of skill and
advanced technology". Sen was also the head of the Development Studies Association from 1980 to 1982. He
won the Mahala Nobis Indian Prize in 1976. And in 1998 he won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
What has made Amartya Sen famous and named by scholars in social and economic sciences is the book
Development as Freedom. The book has received much attention from scholars and international forums. For
example, Kofi Annan, the past Secretary-General of the United Nations, states that: "The poor and deprived
world among economists have no more formal, prudent and more insightful language than Amartya Sen,
showing the quality that our lives should not be merely It should be measured in terms of income and wealth,
but also in terms of our degree of freedom. His writings have revolutionized the theory and practice of
development. In its development work, the United Nations has profoundly benefited from the wisdom, thought
and useful views of Professor Amartya Sen.”
Also, former Nobel Prize winner Kenneth Arrow says: "In this book, Amartya Sen has beautifully and
broadly extended the idea that the process of economic development is inherently directly related to increased
freedom. He illustrates with historical examples, empirical evidence, and robust analysis how the broad and
societal understanding of development is not only not opposed to liberty, but clearly contributes to its
enhancement. "
Methodology and Research Model
This paper is a review base study on Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom. That I want to study,
summarize and draw conclusions from previous research into the effects of Amartya Sen's Development as
Freedom. The structure of this paper is accordingly: after the abstract, we will have an introduction to freedom
as development, and in the next section we will focus on the methodology of the paper then we'll outline our
research literature review, and finally, the Summary of Results and references.
Survey of Literature
Staveren )2009( Investigate the concept of freedom of Sen (as the ability to achieve worthwhile goals) has
many attractions and provides important opportunities for analyzing gender inequalities. In another hand, Sen's
recent emphasis on freedom as a core value in judging individual well-being and social development also
contains risks, not just for feminist analysis. We describe the dangers as an over-interpretation of the concept
of freedom.
According to Coles (2001) in the past, human rights issues were typically analyzed from the standpoint of
separate academic disciplines. Philosophers have focused on questions of international legal commitment to
fundamental issues in ethics and jurisprudence, while both disciplinary views tend to neglect the institutional,
economic, and structural processes affecting individual liberties and human rights. In common secular
economics, which is inappropriate for thinking about freedom and human rights - has dominated the landscape,
and economists have often failed to incorporate thoughts of freedom and rights into their theoretical and
empirical work. Sen's research agenda challenges past thinking and provides the basis for moving forward.
According to Sen (1999), poverty is described as "deprivation of ability" that limits one's scope of actions
and combinations of achievable ones. Economic poverty and poverty are separated, as is seen in South Asia
and sub-Saharan Africa, where people suffer from severe economic poverty in the form of sub-income income
and poverty in the form of high child mortality rates.
Gay (2003) says in his research; Amartya Sen argues that development and freedom are closely linked.
By freedom, he means prosperity in five categories: political participation, economic well-being, social
integration, access to information, and personal security. I have made a few definitions for each of these and
combined them with what I call the Amartya Age Scale. This article is an attempt to prove empirically about
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Amartya Sen's thesis by showing that people who are not good support democracy more than people who are
poor.
According to Khan (2012), the concept of capability and the approach of Sen is based on the views of
human development, freedom, and well-being that are in the spirit of the philosophical insights of the poet-
philosopher Tagore. It means healing a fully human soul in terms of living and doing good and thus eliminating
or reducing wastefulness, deprivation, and oppression. In short, human progress and life are more than
fulfilling, at least for biological organisms.
Staveren & Gasper (2002), write in their research entitled “Economic Freedom and Growth an Analysis
of Impacts “that; does Amartya Sen's thought about freedom and especially her conception of development as
feminist economic freedom enrich her? The concept of positive freedom that age uses has many attractions and
provides important opportunities for analyzing gender inequalities. The increasing emphasis on age as a
dominant overall value for the evaluation of individual well-being and social development, has risks, not only
for feminist analysis. We describe the risks as "inadequate" and "excessive" in the concept of freedom.
According to Terjesen (2004), Development as Freedom is described as a model for examining
development issues economically and politically, rather than as a formula for implementing change. For
example, Sen Writes that by eliminating such things as child labor and child starvation, it reinforces the need
to improve human capacity, but does not provide the structural road map for preventive measures and long-
term changes needed to implement it. Likewise, the Sen Treatise should be judged on how to raise awareness
of development issues.
Türen et al (2016), based on Amartya Sen's theory, has examined the impact of information technology
and economic freedom on the human development index. To this end, using model data from 118 countries for
the period 2011–2000, the model is estimated using hybrid data. The results show that increasing economic
freedom and information technology has led to increased human development.
Heckelman (2000), in an article entitled "Economic Freedom and Economic Growth: A Short-Term Causal
Review", investigated the causal relationship between economic freedom and economic growth. The Heritage
Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom has been cross-sectional for 147 countries. The result shows that all
variables of economic freedom precede economic growth.
Carlsson and Lundstrom (2002), based on Amartya Sen's theory in an article entitled "Economic Freedom
and Growth: An Analysis of Impacts" examined the effect of economic freedom on growth in 74 countries
during the years 1995-75. The effect of the components of economic freedom on growth in this paper is that
market structure, freedom of use of credit, legal structure and protection of property rights and freedom of
exchange in the capital market, positive effect, size of government, and freedom of trade or foreigners have a
negative effect. They had economic growth and monetary policy variables and price stability were meaningless.
Lipford (2007), on the basis of Amartya Sen theory, examines the relationship between the global freedom
index and economic performance in 87 selected countries over the period 1970–2000. The results of the study
show that increasing economic freedom increases stability in countries and enhances the standard of living.
Hristova (2012), on the basis of Amartya Sen's theory, examines the causality between freedom and
economic growth in 91 countries during the period 1995–2012. The results indicate that the causality between
freedom and economic growth is multidimensional and ambiguous.
Ershad-Hussain & Haque (2016), based on Amartya Sen Theory, examined the impact of economic
liberalization and economic growth on 57 countries during the period 2004-2014. The results of the study show
a strong relationship between commercial freedom, financial freedom, investment freedom, business freedom
and economic growth.
Gasper (2002) says the Sen Capability Approach (SCA) has supported valuable work in the field of human
development (HD), drawing more attention to the freedom and well-being of individuals than many previous
economic programs, but has worrying features, and It needs reforming and enrichment. The paper first
discusses the components of the approach, the share of HD reports, and the uncertainty about whether SCA
has the human personality to maintain work on HD, beyond finding better indicators than GDP. It then
discusses the basic concepts of SCA.
Concepts of usability compel us to consider both possibilities and outcomes, but their definition and
application are confusing. In addition to the concept of "opportunity" Sen, we must also separate skills and
potentials and differentiate levels and types of actions. To understand both consumerism and what can be more
motivating and motivating for human development, the different aspects and sources of "well-being" and the
content and requirements of "agency" need to be more than present in the Sen-appropriate strategy., To explain.
The SCA priority class of opportunity should be read as a measure of relevant personal advantage in many
public policy situations, not as a theory of well-being. And the concept of freedom must be accompanied by
concepts of reason and need.
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Wells (2013) during the last thirty years, the Indian economist Amartya Sen has developed a distinctive
normative approach to evaluating wellbeing in terms of individuals’ freedom to achieve the type of lives they
have reason to value and development as the expansion of that freedom. This freedom is analyzed in terms of
a person’s ‘capability’ to achieve compositions of such intrinsically valuable ‘beings and doings’
(‘functioning’) as being enough nourished and freely expressing one’s political views.
Summary of Results
Sen (1998) showed that in order for countries to achieve development, any factor that restricts human
freedoms must be removed; in other words, he considers development equal to freedom. Although it has been
a long time since this theory has been put forward, empirical research to study this theory in particular has been
limited so we reviewed a number of these studies in this paper.
Accordingly, this study sought to examine the studies on the view of Amartya Sen and use the indices of
economic freedom, political freedom, governance quality and human development index to examine the
interplay between the types of freedoms and economic development that Approved by Amartya Sen, check.
The results show that all kinds of freedom are important to achieve development and must be taken into
account. Based on the results, it is clear that freedom and development have a very close relationship and it
may be difficult or impossible to achieve development without improving the freedom indices. According to
the results of some researches, economic freedom, political freedom, quality of governance and human
development interact with each other and are directly related. Investigating the causal relationship in a number
of other studies shows that human development has been the cause of economic freedom, political freedom,
and the quality of governance, and thus, the quality of governance has been the cause of human development,
the cause of economic freedom, and political freedom.
Also, some literature review shows that, economic freedom has been the sole cause of political freedom,
and political freedom has been the cause of economic freedom and the quality of governance. In addition, a
review of the causality results makes it clear that governance quality is an important part of improving freedom
and development indicators.
According to the results of some studies, the obvious relationship between freedom and development in
all cases is not confirmed. So that: a) Economic freedom has not been the cause of human development and
quality governance; b) Political freedom is not the cause of human development. In other words, economic
freedom is not the cause of human development and good governance. On the other hand, the impact of political
freedom on human development has not been confirmed. As a result, Amartya Sen's theory in this case has not
been confirmed.
Amartya Sen believes there are two trends in development: the "Hard-knocks" and the "Friendly Process”.
The first view sees development as a "painful and violent" process with blood and tears, and Amartya Sen
chose the second view, and in her book has attempted to describe development as (as in) the process of
expanding freedoms. See the real thing that people benefit from. In this approach, the promotion of freedom is
seen as both the primary goal and the main means of development.
The institutional role of freedom is related to the importance of fundamental freedoms in enriching human
life. Basic freedoms include: basic abilities (such as the ability to avoid hunger, malnutrition, illness, and
premature death), as well as freedoms that accompany literacy, the enjoyment of political participation, and
free expression, etc. Is. In this fundamental perspective, it encompasses development, expansion, and other
fundamental freedoms.
Amartya Sen believes in a two-way relationship between freedom and responsibility. "The freedoms and
powers we have in our responsibilities are strongly linked to our environmental, social and personal
circumstances," he says. A deprived primary schooling child will not only be a deprived adolescent but also a
disabled person throughout his or her life because as a human being, he or she will perform certain basic tasks
related to reading, writing and calculating., Cannot do. Adults who are deprived of the medical equipment and
facilities to cure their illness will not only suffer from a terminal illness and death, but will also be deprived of
the freedom to perform various tasks that they are capable of doing as a responsible human being. So are half-
born workers, the daughter of oppressed children, and landless farmers unable to manage their livelihoods, all
of which have the ability to manage their lives with the responsibility they need. It has certain fundamental
freedoms; they are also deprived. Responsibility is a matter of freedom.
The relationship between freedom and responsibility is reciprocal. Without the fundamental freedom and
ability to do things, one cannot feel responsible for doing things; Needs individual responsibility. "In that case,
freedom is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for accountability."
Concluding his discussion of the role of freedom, says Amartya Sen, "a set of diverse institutions, such as:
markets, offices, law-making, political parties, NGOs, the judiciary and the media, the development process,
in particular through their impacts, is on strengthening and sustaining individual freedoms. Achieving
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development requires an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the respective roles of these different
entities and their interaction and interaction with other institutions that have given different aspects and
dimensions, but a coordinating principle between these aspects and the components of existence. And that
unity is important, but the diversity of freedom is still there, and it's unfortunate, as William Cooper says:
Freedom has thousands of effects to offer that slaves, though satisfied, never they will not know. In fact,
development is an extract of the possibilities of freedom.

References
Beyer, G. J. (2014). Poverty, Freedom, and Solidarity in the Thought of Amartya Sen. In G. J. Beyer, Poverty,
Freedom, and Solidarity in the Thought of Amartya Sen (pp. 135-156). Villanova, USA: Villanova
University, USA.
Carlsson, & Lundstrom. (2002). Economic Freedom and Growth: An Analysis of Impacts. International
Journal of Research Culture Society, 2(3), 483-489.
Coles, J. A. (2001). Economic Theory, Freedom and Human Rights: The Work of Amartya Sen. ODI Briefing
Papers, 6(21), 234-238. Doi:2001 ISSN 0140-8682
Gasper, D. (2002, January 23). IS SEN'S CAPABILITY APPROACH AN ADEQUATE BASIS FOR
CONSIDERING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT? Journal of International Development, 14(4), 435-461.
Retrieved from http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23177/.
Gay, J. (2003). DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM: A VIRTUOUS CIRCLE? Afrobarometer, 29(29), 299-313.
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Heckelman. (2000). Economic Freedom and Economic Growth: A Short-Term Causal Review. Journal of
applied research, 5(4).
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Hussain, E., & Haque. (2016). Impact of economic liberalization and economic growth. International Journal
of Applied Research, 2(1), 591-594.
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Https://www.iep.utm.edu/sen-cap/
Http://dannyreviews.com/h/Development_Freedom.html
Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen
Https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2000.00153.x

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