amartya sen development as freedom chapter 1 summary

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.

Sen’s evaluation is all the more powerful for its clarity: 'The freedom-centered perspective has a generic similarity to the common concern with 'quality of life.Development means freedom, according to Amartya Sen, perhaps the greatest development thinker of our times.

In many ways, measuring income does not account for various “unfreedoms” (manmade or natural bars to wellbeing) that hinder development.

He concludes that an evaluation of true freedom must necessarily include the freedom to access social services such as healthcare, sanitation and nutrition, just as much as it must acknowledge economic and political freedoms.Įvaluating the relevance of the current thinking behind development, Sen concludes that the term ‘freedom’ cannot simply be about income. He says people tend to think of freedoms as economic (the freedom to enter into market exchanges) or political (the freedom to vote and be an active citizen), and tries to understand why the definition has been so narrow hitherto. Having come to the conclusion that development is best summed up as the expansion of freedom, Sen examines traditional definitions and understandings of the term. Amartya Sen uses his 1999 work Development as Freedom to evaluate the processes and outcomes of economic development.

Amartya sen development as freedom chapter 1 summary