Development As Freedom

“Despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to a vast number—perhaps the majority—of people.”

Sen adopts a dry, analytical tone for most of the book so as to offer a dispassionate scholarly argument. Sentences such as this one, however, make it clear that he has a passion for justice. Even if Sen chooses not to use emotional language, the contrast between increasing opulence for some people and the denial of basic freedoms for others highlights his sense of justice.

“The experience was devastating for me. It made me reflect, later on, on the terrible burden of narrowly defined identities, including those firmly based on communities and groups (I shall have occasion to discuss that issue in this book). But more immediately, it also pointed to the remarkable fact that economic unfreedom, in the form of extreme poverty, can make a person helpless prey in the violation of other kinds of freedom.”

Sen allows himself one personal anecdote in his introduction (which was not part of the original series of lectures to the World Bank). He describes the death of the laborer Kader Mia on the doorstep of his childhood home, and he uses this example to justify the urgency of thinking about development. He also begins to explore how different freedoms are interconnected. In this example, social and religious prejudice contributed to economic unfreedom and a lack of personal safety.

“Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means. In addition to acknowledging, foundationally, the evaluative importance of freedom, we also have to understand the remarkable empirical connection that links freedoms of different kinds with one another.”

Sen clearly states one of the books main themes here: Freedom as the Means and End of Development. Promoting freedom in any one area helps build freedom (i.e. development) in other areas as well. He promises that this isn’t just a theory but is “empirical”—that is, supported by real world observations.

“The usefulness of wealth lies in the things that it allows us to do—the substantive freedoms it helps us to achieve. But this relation is neither exclusive (since there are significant influences on our lives other than wealth) nor uniform (since the impact of wealth on our lives varies with other influences).”

Sen’s first task in the book is to shift people’s attention from the obvious but crude economic view of development as purely contingent on income. He will do so in various ways throughout the book, but he sums up the main argument here: Wealth should be seen as a means, not the goal; furthermore, it is not the only tool that matters for achieving a person’s wellbeing.

“There are two distinct reasons for the crucial importance of individual freedom in the concept of development, related respectively to evaluation and effectiveness.”

Sen returns to the importance of distinguishing between goals and instruments to achieve true development. He returns to his original theme of Freedom as the Means and End of Development, and his shift in diction signals several important new ideas. “Individual” emphasizes his rejection of aggregate measures, like utilitarianism, that skim over issues of inequality. “Evaluation” prepares the reader for Sen’s consideration of holistic measurements for goals. “Effectiveness” hints at his claim that enhancing freedom works better than authoritarian programs in promoting development.

“Given the heterogeneity of distinct components of freedom as well as the need to take note of different persons’ diverse freedoms, there will often be arguments that go in contrary directions. The motivation underlying the approach of ‘development as freedom’ is not so much to order all states—or all alternative scenarios—into one ‘complete ordering,’ but to draw attention to important aspects of the process of development, each of which deserves attention.”

Sen acknowledges an important limitation of his approach: There is no single definition of freedom or agreement on how to rank priorities for different kinds of freedom. This means that freedom cannot be a fully objective measure. There will always be a subjective element to it, but he believes this problem can be solved through a rough consensus achieved by open public debate.

“The people have to be seen, in this perspective, as being actively involved—given the opportunity—in shaping their own destiny, and not just as passive recipients of the fruits of cunning development programs. The state and the society have extensive roles in strengthening and safeguarding human capabilities. This is a supporting role, rather than one of ready-made delivery.”

Sen introduces his focus on The Importance of Empowering Marginalized People here. He is clear, however, that the state and other organizations still have a key role in development. His pragmatic approach avoids taking absolute stances in favor of a single principle or single way of doing things.

“In fact, the real ‘bite’ of a theory of justice can, to a great extent, be understood from its informational base: what information is—or is not—taken to be directly relevant.”

Sen maintains that different philosophies of justice can be compared depending on what information (poverty, inequality, happiness, preference, etc.) they consider, rather than engaging them on the basis of first principles. This allows easy comparison between them. More importantly, it sets up his own approach to justice that eschews most overarching principles in favor of having the public weigh in on a wide range of factors (i.e. a broad informational base) and come to a rough consensus.

“In analyzing social justice, there is a strong case for judging individual advantage in terms of the capabilities that a person has, that is, the substantive freedoms he or she enjoys to lead the kind of life he or she has reason to value. In this perspective, poverty must be seen as the deprivation of basic capabilities rather than merely as lowness of incomes, which is the standard criterion of identification of poverty.”

In this passage, Sen defines how freedom can be used as the measure for development. He takes a capabilities approach that defines freedom in terms of the real or substantive ability of a person to live in the way that they consider to be in accord with their wellbeing.

“The issue of public discussion and social participation is thus central to the making of policy in a democratic framework. The use of democratic prerogatives—both political liberties and civil rights—is a crucial part of the exercise of economic policy making itself, in addition to other roles it may have.”

Sen asserts that political freedom is key for economic development. Ensuring that the policies that undergird economic development reflect the concerns of all stakeholders and harnesses their participation is, by definition, a democratic process.

“Yesterday’s unexamined faith has become today’s heresy, and yesterday’s heresy is now the new superstition.”

Sen paraphrases a quotation from T. H. Huxley to describe the way that changes in what every economist “knows” to be true have hindered rational examination of problems. Development economists used to believe that a market-based economy had too many flaws and did not support it; now, they focus solely on its power without acknowledging its flaws. Both viewpoints need critical examination since the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

“The problems that arise spring typically from other sources—not from the existence of markets per se—and include such concerns as inadequate preparedness to make use of market transactions, unconstrained concealment of information or unregulated use of activities that allow the powerful to capitalize on their asymmetrical advantage. These have to be dealt with not by suppressing the markets, but by allowing them to function better and with greater fairness, and with adequate supplementation.”

Sen rejects the idea that free markets are fundamentally flawed or unfair since they really consist of just two people making arrangements that both find beneficial. At the same time, he acknowledges that in real life, markets can lead to inequalities. In this quotation, he explains how freedom in the market (including transparency guarantees) combined with judicious public policy can alleviate those concerns.

“It can indeed be argued that a proper understanding of what economic needs are—their content and their force—requires discussion and exchange. Political and civil rights, especially those related to the guaranteeing of open discussion, debate, criticism, and dissent, are central to the processes of generating informed and reflected choices.”

Sen asserts that political liberty is connected to economic freedom. In an echo of John Rawls’s political philosophy, Sen believes in the power of civil discourse to find common ground through open debate. This can, in turn, forge democratic consensus that allows rational political action.

“For example, India continued to have famines right up to the time of independence in 1947. The last famine—one of the largest—was the Bengal famine in the spring and summer of 1943 (which I had the experience of witnessing, in its full rigor, as a nine-year-old boy); it is estimated that between two million and three million people died in that famine. Since independence and the installation of a multiparty democratic system, there has been no substantial famine, even though severe crop failures and massive loss of purchasing power have occurred often enough.”

The disappearance of famines from democratic countries is a key empirical piece of data for Sen, and one to which he frequently returns. As he hints in his parenthetical remark, the example of India is particularly important for him since he experienced the last famine there and lived with the various food crises afterward. A democratic India has successfully navigated these challenges, and no famines have occurred since it achieved independence. Since Sen’s family was relatively privileged, he did not starve during the 1943 famine; so, he saw firsthand that food still exists during famine times, even if only some can access it.

“Famines and other crises thrive on the basis of severe and sometimes suddenly increased inequality. This is illustrated by the fact that famines can occur even without a large—or any—diminution of total food supply, because some groups may suffer an abrupt loss of market power (through, for example, sudden and massive unemployment), with starvation resulting from this new inequality.”

The fact that famines do not always come from crop failures or other reductions in food supply challenges older, seemingly obvious ideas about what famines are. Sen shifts the conversation to see famines as resulting from problematic structures that foster inequality rather than a sudden crisis, though such a crisis may reveal underlying problems with equality.

“Perhaps the most immediate argument for focusing on women’s agency may be precisely the role that such an agency can play in removing the iniquities that depress the well-being of women. Empirical work in recent years has brought out very clearly how the relative respect and regard for women’s well-being is strongly influenced by such variables as women’s ability to earn an independent income, to find employment outside the home, to have ownership rights and to have literacy and be educated participants in decisions within and outside the family.”

Sen believes in empowering marginalized people and has a special concern for women. The specific examples in this quotation and the reference to the empirical evidence provided in the chapter, as well as references to footnoted studies, demonstrate that this isn’t just an idealistic or theoretical position; rather, it is grounded in a careful study of factors that have influenced women’s wellbeing in observed situations.

“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.”

Sen usually avoids statements of absolute principle. However, in this instance, his rhetorical commitment highlights the force of his claim that empowering women’s freedoms is the most important step to be taken in development today. Only the interjected “arguably” moderates his full commitment to this principle.

“Is the world food output falling behind world population in what is seen as a ‘race’ between the two? The fear that this is precisely what is happening, or that it will soon happen, has had remarkable staying power despite relatively little evidence in its favor.”

Sen poses this question to highlight the underlying assumption behind overpopulation concerns. Too often, he says, people have assumed that this “race” between food and population exists. They have not actually asked if there is evidence to support this initial premise for arguments about whether or not to forcibly control human reproduction.

“Indeed, it is best to see human rights as a set of ethical claims, which must not be identified with legislated legal rights. But this normative interpretation need not obliterate the usefulness of the idea of human rights in the kind of context in which they are typically invoked. The freedoms that are associated with particular rights may be the appropriate focal point for debate.”

Sen values human rights and earlier noted that the lack of intrinsic respect for rights is a failure of utilitarianism. Here, he opposes the claim that rights must only be those that a particular government or international law guarantees. However, in this quotation, Sen also makes clear that he understands that the language of rights is subject to fierce debate and he prefers to shift the debate to his preferred—and perhaps more objective—terminology of freedom.

“To see Asian history in terms of a narrow category of authoritarian values does little justice to the rich varieties or thought in Asian intellectual traditions. Dubious history does nothing to vindicate dubious politics.”

One of Sen’s main targets in this book is authoritarian leaders, like Singapore’s Lee, who assert that appeals to freedom or rights represent a neo-colonial imposition of Western values on Asian society. After a broad survey of the actual variety of Asian opinions (both historically and contemporarily), Sen ridicules the position as resting on historical claims that are “dubious”—without good rational support.

“This is very distant from George Stigler’s Smith, and far from the caricature of Smith as the big guru of self-interest. We can say by twisting Shakespeare a little, that while some men are born small and some achieve smallness, Adam Smith has had much smallness thrust upon him.”

Neoclassical and neoliberal proponents of extreme free markets often call upon Adam Smith’s writings as the foundation for their principles. Sen challenges them as reducing that complex figure to a caricature.

“The purpose of the empirical discussions involving corruption (and earlier on, fertility behavior) is not merely to examine issues that are important in themselves, but also to illustrate the significance of norms and values in behavior patterns that may be crucial for the making of public policy. The illustrations also serve to outline the role of public interaction in the formation of values and ideas of justice.”

Sen raises the problem of public corruption—a major concern in contemporary development debates—to prove different freedoms are interconnected. Social and political norms that grow out of transparent public debate play a key role in issues like corruption that mere institutional solutions often fail to solve.

“This does not require us to rank all development experiences in one linear order. What is, in contrast, indispensably important is an adequate understanding of the informational basis of evaluation—the kind of information we need to examine in order to assess what is going on and what is being seriously neglected.”

Sen does not believe there is a simple formula for determining the best development policy in any situation. In this quotation, he challenges those who propose using single measurements such as GNP per capita or utility; doing so invariably “neglects” or overlooks key aspects of people’s wellbeing. Therefore, policymakers need a broader base of information to consider—that is, a wide variety of criteria related to different freedoms and functionings.