Development as Freedom
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Development as Freedom (first pub. 1999) is a book written by Amartya Sen.
Some of the topics of this book:
- Development is the expansion of capabilities... having the freedom to choose between different ways of thinking.
- Enrichment of humans lives.
- Being able to choose how you want to live.
Amartya Sen was an Indian-born Cambridge economist who won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Economic Science. He was praised by the Nobel Committee for bringing an "ethical dimension" to a field recently dominated by technical specialists. Based on the example of former Soviet, Sen argues that political liberties are necessary for sustainable development. He also tackles the paradox of Chinese hare and Indian tortoise in terms of economic growth. Sen observes that China had invested in general literacy and basic health before opening its economy in 1979. But the "socialist regime" in India in the 1960s and 70s neglected those very areas in pursuit of a Nationalisation dream under the "commanding heights" of the license Raj. While Indian democractic process can be painfully slow, it guarantees stable growth in the long run. Sen, therefore, demolishes the notion that a specific set of "Asian values" exists that might provide a justification for authoritarian regimes.
