Development as FreedomIn Development as Freedom Amartya Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence millions of people living in the Third World are still unfree. Even if they are not technically slaves, they are denied elementary freedoms and remain imprisoned in one way or another by economic poverty, social deprivation, political tyranny or cultural authoritarianism. The main purpose of development is to spread freedom and its 'thousand charms' to the unfree citizens. Freedom, Sen persuasively argues, is at once the ultimate goal of social and economic arrangements and the most efficient means of realizing general welfare. Social institutions like markets, political parties, legislatures, the judiciary, and the media contribute to development by enhancing individual freedom and are in turn sustained by social values. Values, institutions, development, and freedom are all closely interrelated, and Sen links them together in an elegant analytical framework. By asking 'What is the relation between our collective economic wealth and our individual ability to live as we would like?' and by incorporating individual freedom as a social commitment into his analysis Sen allows economics once again, as it did in the time of Adam Smith, to address the social basis of individual well-being and freedom. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - HadriantheBlind - LibraryThingRead for class. Very interesting book, discussing the idea of societal independence and personal freedom to be most necessary for development. Provides excellent examples and reasoning. Finally, I'd ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - ErlangerFactionless - LibraryThingThe overarching ideas in this book are solid. Sen argues that individual freedom is both the means and the end of economic development, and that development shouldn’t simply be measured by Gross ... Read full review
Contents
The Perspective of Freedom | 13 |
The ends and the Means of Development | 35 |
Freedom and the Foundations of Justice | 54 |
Poverty as Capability Deprivation | 87 |
Markets States and Social Opportunity III | 146 |
Famines and Other Crises | 160 |
Womens Agency and Social Change | 189 |
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achieve Action actual Africa agency analysis approach argued argument arrangements Asia Asian attention Bangladesh basic behavior called Cambridge chapter China choice Clarendon Press comparisons concerns connection consider countries cultural demand democracy depend deprivation Development discussed Drèze economic edited effects employment Ethics evaluative example expectancy extent fact famines female fertility freedom functioning growth human Hunger important income India individual inequality influence institutions interest involved issue Italy Journal justice kind liberty lives London matter means ment mortality nature opportunities Oxford particular person perspective political poor population possible poverty presented problem production question rates reason reducing relative respective role seen Smith social society South Korea substantive tend Theory tion understanding United University Press utility values Welfare well-being women York
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Development as Freedom Oxford University Press paperback |
| Author | Amartya Sen |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | OUP Oxford, 2001 |
| ISBN | 0192893300, 9780192893307 |
| Length | 366 pages |
| Subjects | › › Business & Economics / Economics / General Political Science / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |