While many of these economies were not democratic, some like Korea, Taiwan, Thailand became more democratic over time. These economies were riding on the success of the individual entering the market. So how did the dynamic economies of East Asia develop so rapidly? Sen highlights “social opportunities” provided by government in the form of schooling, basic health care, basic land reform, and microcredit. Most democracies occupy the middle ground. And as Dani Rodrik said, the economic performance of authoritarian regimes is either very good or very bad – and usually very bad. For Sen there is no such thing as Asian values in a continent with vastly disparate populations and traditions, and containing 60 per cent of the world’s population. Sen attacks Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and his theories of Asian values which are used to justify political repression.
They recommend repressive interventions of the state in stifling liberty, initiative and enterprise, and in crippling the working of the individual agency and cooperative action. Some see freedom as a potential disturbance to political stability and development. And Afro-Americans have a lower life expectancy than males in China and parts of India, although their average real income is far higher. Some places with low GDP/capita like Sri Lanka, China and the India state of Kerala have higher life expectancies and literacy rates than richer countries like Brazil, South Africa and Namibia. While higher GDP does produce improvements in most measures of the quality of life, but there are exceptions. Sen calculates that if women in Asia and North Africa were given the same health care and attention, the world would have 100 million more women.įor Sen, “capability deprivation” is a better measure of poverty than low income. What people can achieve (their capabilities) is influenced by “economic opportunities, political liberties, social powers, and the enabling condition of good health, basic education, and the encouragement and cultivation of initiatives”. The state has a role in supporting freedoms by providing public education, health care, social safety nets, good macroeconomic policies, productivity and protecting the environment.įreedom implies not just to do something, but the capabilities to make it happen. Sen argues that there are five types of interrelated freedoms, namely, political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency and security. Hence “development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systemic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states”. It is “the enhancement of freedoms that allow people to lead lives that they have reason to live”. This is because democratic governments “have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes”.ĭevelopment is the process of expanding human freedom.
He claims that “no famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy”. Such rights, especially freedom of the press, speech, assembly, and so forth increase the likelihood of honest, clean, good government. In winning the Nobel prize, Sen was praised by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences "for his contributions to welfare economics" and for restoring "an ethical dimension" to the discussion of vital economic problems.Īccording to Sen, development is enhanced by democracy and the protection of human rights. Sen is both the first Indian and the first Asian to win the Nobel prize for economics. According to 1998 Nobel prize winner, Amartya Sen, freedom is both the primary objective of development, and the principal means of development. Over the centuries, there have been very many theories of development. Development means freedom, according to Amartya Sen, perhaps the greatest development thinker of our times.
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