Amartya Sen: Development as Freedom (1999)Read about the other entries on the list.
One of the most powerful truisms that politicians, policymakers and academics buy into is that development depends upon economic growth.
Sen – an Indian economist and Nobel prizewinner – makes a compelling argument about why that narrative is wrong.
Many countries achieved rapid growth and industrial transformation during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The most prominent – Brazil and South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s, and contemporary China – under authoritarian regimes.
Authoritarianism is justified by some as necessary for an ultra-hardworking labour force to catch up with developed countries. Sen argues that human development could and should be “a process of expanding the real freedoms” people enjoy.
Democracy, political participation and freedom of speech ensure that the poor cannot simply be ignored or exploited in the name of growth, he argues.
Core essential freedoms include a life free from the threat of starvation, undernourishment and premature mortality, alongside literacy and numeracy.
People’s freedoms are intrinsically important and enhance economic participation, generating further freedom-enhancing values.
States and public institutions have a crucial role to play. Sen’s thinking about development is evident in his understanding of poverty. He opposes metrics that count poverty based on income but focuses on ways in which poverty restricts freedom, and how it is expanded by anti-poverty measures.
Sen welcomed India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme of the early 2000s, which provided at least 100 days of unskilled wage employment a year to at least one member of every household, contributing significantly to poverty reduction.
The scheme enhanced its recipients’ “self-respect and participation in life and community” and he argues that women’s empowerment – through education, healthcare, changes to sexist laws – is key to women’s ability to advance social change.
“Nothing, arguably, is as important today in the political economy of development as an adequate recognition of political, economic and social participation and leadership of women,” he concludes.
--Marshal Zeringue
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