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The concept of freedom and its relation to economic development - A critical appreciation of the work of Amartya Sen
Abstract
Following a brief review of the conception of freedom as employed in economic discourse, this paper focuses on the evolution of the concept of freedom in the work of Amartya Sen. It traces the development of Sen's thought from the capability analysis of the late 1970s to his more recent separation of freedom into its opportunity and process aspects. While broadly appreciative of Sen's development of the concept of positive freedom, the paper identifies some difficulties arising from his definition of capability as a set of options as well as from his separation of the opportunity and process aspects of freedom. Aspects of the relationship between Sen's conception of freedom and that of Marx are discussed briefly in the context of Sen's recent discussion of the market as a source of freedom. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
... Antes de começar a analisar a abordagem das capacidades em si, é útil perguntar em qual contexto se deu esta contribuição. De acordo com Prendergast (2005Prendergast ( , p. 1155), Sen enfatizava a necessidade de uma base objetiva por meio da qual fosse possível realizar comparações interpessoais de bem-estar. Isso porque a partir de uma abordagem utilitarista não seria possível realizar tal comparação, considerada fundamental para uma economia do bem-estar adequada. ...
... (21) Para uma análise da evolução no tratamento por parte de Sen do tema da liberdade ver Prendergast (2005). conjunto de "funcionamentos" dentre os quais determinado indivíduo pode escolher). ...
... Neste sentido, Prendergast (2005Prendergast ( , p. 1156) afirma que independentemente da escolhas dos funcionamentos ou das capacidades para analisar o bem-estar, a capacidade tem um papel instrumental já que só é possível alcançar determinado funcionamento se houver a capacidade para isso. Segundo o autor, ao pensar em capacidade nesses termos, seria natural pensar em habilidades mentais e físicas, qualificações e experiência. ...
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is an important body of the United Nations for development issues. It is also responsible for the construction and publication of the Human Development Index (HDI). The UNDP is present in more than 166 countries and exerts an influence on the theory and practice of economic development. It is very important to define the elements which allow the establishment of limits to the UNDPs action. The purpose of this paper is to identify, classify and critically explain the theoretical basis for the paradigm of human development, on which its line of work has been based. The capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen is the theoretical basis for the paradigm of human development. This approach is very convenient for the pragmatic and consensual nature of the UNDPs action because it proposes a greater focus on the expansion of individual capabilities, but without calling for structural changes in the international economic order.
... Esta califi cación no supone negar contenidos sociales ni preocupaciones colectivas al enfoque, sino destacar que no se encuentra entre sus prioridades la evaluación de los contenidos colectivos o grupales. Mucho menos se trata de discutir la preocupación social de Sen, que siempre ha mostrado un compromiso claro en la visión de las relaciones entre la libertad individual y los acuerdos sociales, como le reconocen sus críticos (Prendergast, 2005(Prendergast, :1161. ...
... En este sentido, Neuhouser señala, como recoge Prendergast (2005Prendergast ( :1162, que aun dentro de una clara posición individualista el EC se abre a la consideración del bien colectivo dentro del bienestar, ya que el argumento de que el bien colectivo es reducible al bien de los individuos como distinto de su bien como individuos implica un reconocimiento que la asociación con otros en la sociedad es valiosa como un fi n en sí mismo y no algo meramente instrumental. ...
... En la misma línea,Prendergast (2005Prendergast ( :1162 señala que la reproducción y modifi cación de la producción y las estructuras sociales implican un bien que no puede reducirse a los bienes individuales concebidos como bienes sociales. ...
Entre los debates generados por el desarrollo humano, uno de los más extendidos se centra en la consideración de la dimensión colectiva del bienestar. Una de las críticas al enfoque de las capacidades de Sen, que se presenta como la base teórica del desarrollo humano, hace referencia a su carácter individualista, por considerar que desconoce, o que lo hace de manera insuficiente, las relaciones y acuerdos sociales como componentes directos del bienestar, relegándolos a meros instrumentos para alcanzar el bienestar de las personas.
Desde esta preocupación el artículo pretende indagar hasta dónde las categorías teóricas del enfoque de las capacidades ofrecen bases para elaborar estrategias de desarrollo humano cuyo objetivo sea la consecución de logros de desarrollo humano colectivo. Para ello, se ofrece una perspectiva del estado actual del debate sobre las categorías de análisis colectivas del desarrollo humano, que contempla al enfoque de las capacidades como objeto de análisis, y, por otra parte, presenta diversas propuestas teóricas que pretenden paliar sus carencias en ese sentido. Para ello considera dos grandes apartados: a) partiendo del enfoque de las capacidades, qué propuestas se hacen de manera que se integren de manera más decidida las dimensiones relacionales; b) partiendo de entender que el enfoque de las capacidades presenta carencias que no pueden suplirse implemente desde la ampliación de nuevas capacidades individuales, qué categorías teóricas se proponen para la consideración de la dimensión colectiva del bienestar.
... 15 Para ese estudioso, la libertad entendida como libertad positiva «es su nota distintiva en el paisaje liberal contemporáneo[...]» (Ponce 2008: 129). Prendergast (2005Prendergast ( : 1149 estudia la evolución del concepto de libertad en Sen y destaca, junto a diversas críticas, «sus muchas innovaciones». Entre ellas, la de enfocar el asunto de modo de poner de relieve las diferencias entre individuos (1150), la de la independencia de la libertad efectiva respecto de sus precondiciones (1152-3). ...
... «Dado el enorme alcance del proyecto de Sen, es natural que convoque a la solución de muchos problemas nuevos y que algunos de ellos resulten ser difíciles de resolver»(Prendergast 2005(Prendergast : 1155. Las traducciones de las referencias en inglés son nuestras, salvo indicación en contrario. ...
A fines de la década de 1990, el trabajo de Amartya Sen produjo un cambio radical en la forma de entender el desarrollo. Su enfoque, basado en las categorías de capacidades y de libertad, representó un desafío a la perspectiva predominante hasta entonces, sostenida en indicadores económicos. Sen plantea tomar en consideración distintas esferas de la vida de las personas, destacando la importancia de las condiciones que les permiten o no realizar sus proyectos de vida. Este enfoque es denominado Desarrollo Humano. Un grupo de docentes de la PUCP de diferentes especialidades, y con una amplia experiencia de trabajo en el tema del desarrollo, asumió el reto de pensar colectivamente la propuesta de Sen. Este libro es el resultado de esta iniciativa. Los artículos, elaborados desde diferentes disciplinas (tales como la fi losofía, la psicología, la sociología, la teología, la antropología, la economía y la ingeniería), miran hacia un horizonte común: la reflexión interdisciplinaria y dialógica sobre las posibilidades del Desarrollo Humano en el Perú.
... Other development studies authors have blamed Sen for alleged methodological individualism, too: Fine (2004) reads Sen's entitlement theory to be 'profoundly neutral with respect to social relations and the historical specificity'. Prendergast (2004Prendergast ( , 2005Prendergast ( , 2011 follows on social relations and argues that freedom (capability) is best seen as a collective -not an individual -concept. O'Hearn (2009, p. 13) follows on historical specificity and blames Sen for defining freedom by security of property and the ability to trade it on markets. ...
... If there is a common thread throughout the literature on collectivity and the capability approach it's the reference to Sen's ideas on public reasoning. His critics endorse his commitment to freedom and public debate, but claim that he doesn't sufficiently acknowledge their collective nature (Prendergast, 2005(Prendergast, , p. 1162 or the collective basis of public reasoning (Stewart & Deneulin, 2002). However, Sen (2009, pp. ...
Sen's capability approach is often criticized for its alleged individualism; various approaches have been suggested to overcome this problem. The notion of ‘collective capabilities’ is best known while other suggestions haven't received as much attention or approval. This article surveys the manifold suggestions for how Sen's capability approach can accommodate collectives and introduces the literature. Five strands of literature are identified with a framework that classifies these suggestions according to (a) whether the groups are externally or internally defined and (b) whether the main aim of these groups is to improve the well-being or agency of their members. After discussing the main threads of the literature the article tags Sen's capability approach as an example of structural individualism, proposes the concept of collective functionings, and calls for models of interaction between individuals and collective agency that integrate collective intentions and explore the effects of Giddensian social structure.
... Renee Prendergast (2005) makes a distinction between freedom as absence of interference and freedom to achieve valuable outcomes. "This distinction between the concept of liberty as freedom from coercion, on the one hand, and as freedom to achieve valued outcomes, on the other, has been captured by the terms negative and positive liberty" (ibid., p. 1147). ...
This chapter takes up Amartya Sen's ideas on social choice and welfare economics, capabilities and entitlements in development, development as freedom, gender disparities and women's empowerment, the role of markets and the state, and the role of democracy. Sen is a great believer in democracy, even for developing countries, and hates authoritarianism of both the Left and Right. While China's dictatorship was responsible for millions of famine deaths, in independent India free press and multiparty democracy prevented famines. Sen is against any general pro or anti market stances and recommends that each case be decided on its merits. Sen strongly bats for human development or interventions aimed at ensuring acceptable levels of entitlements in the form of education, health, nutrition, gender equalities and civic freedoms. In his opinion, it is better to cut down military expenditures rather than cutting down on education or healthcare (or teachers and nurses). Sen believes in an incrementalist approach to economics as social choice theory and welfare economics (for which he got the Nobel Prize) are themselves based on incrementalism. He neither believes in the Schumpeterian idea of abrupt creative destruction nor in the Marxian idea that capitalism will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. He believes that capitalism can be reformed through conscious social choices in a participatory democracy.
... Esta calificación no supone negar contenidos sociales ni preocupaciones colectivas en el enfoque, sino destacar que no se encuentra entre sus prioridades la evaluación de los contenidos colectivos o grupales. Mucho menos se trata de discutir la preocupación social de Sen, que siempre ha mostrado un compromiso claro en la visión de las relaciones entre la libertad individual y los acuerdos sociales, como le reconocen sus críticos (Prendergast, 2005). Gore (1997) fundamenta su crítica al enfoque en el argumento de que, al centrarse en las libertades individuales, se reduce a evaluar aquello que es bueno para las personas, para cada una por separado, pero no hay una evaluación del bienestar como categoría colectiva. ...
Objetivo: reflexionar en torno a dos conceptos medulares en el Enfoque de Capacidades (EC) propuesto por Amartya Sen, ‘capacidades’ y ‘agencia’, a partir de la revisión documental y posiciones teóricas de diversos autores. Metodología: esta es una investigación cualitativa basada en la revisión documental y la reflexión teóricaconceptual, la cual permite profundizar en los postulados del EC y retroalimentarlos a partir de otros paradigmas que posibilitan cruzar las fronteras de sus nociones conceptuales. Resultados: el EC ha revolucionado la forma en que concebimos el desarrollo humano y el bienestar de las personas a partir de la ruptura con las teorías de desarrollo tradicionales. Si bien esto constituye un avance importante, se debe seguir trabajando por una teoría sólida que se ocupe de las personas a escala humana y colectiva. En un primer momento, se abordan las críticas que diversos autores le hacen al enfoque, los cuales lo acusan de individualista. Luego, se exploran algunas propuestas conceptuales que exaltan el potencial de la dimensión relacional en las nociones de ‘capacidades’ y ‘agencia’, lo cual posibilita ampliar el EC más allá de sus fronteras.Conclusiones: la principal conclusión es que, si bien el Enfoque de las Capacidades presenta un individualismo ético, no puede caracterizarse como individualista desde el punto de vista ontológico y metodológico. Esta condición permite ampliar la base conceptual del enfoque hacia dimensiones más relacionales y colectivas.
... De ahí que hasta ahora no se ha desarrollado todavía un método estándar para medir o evaluar los desempeños. Como señala Prendergast (2005): «The problems associated with any precise valuation of functionings carry over to the evaluation of capability. We also encounter the additional issue of whether choice is valuable in itself and, if so, how is to be valued. ...
A fines de la década de 1990, el trabajo de Amartya Sen produjo un cambio radical en la forma de entender el desarrollo. Su enfoque, basado en las categorías de capacidades y de libertad, representó un desafío a la perspectiva predominante hasta entonces, sostenida en indicadores económicos. Sen plantea tomar en consideración distintas esferas de la vida de las personas, destacando la importancia de las condiciones que les permiten o no realizar sus proyectos de vida. Este enfoque es denominado Desarrollo Humano. Un grupo de docentes de la PUCP de diferentes especialidades, y con una amplia experiencia de trabajo en el tema del desarrollo, asumió el reto de pensar colectivamente la propuesta de Sen. Este libro es el resultado de esta iniciativa. Los artículos, elaborados desde diferentes disciplinas (tales como la fi losofía, la psicología, la sociología, la teología, la antropología, la economía y la ingeniería), miran hacia un horizonte común: la reflexión interdisciplinaria y dialógica sobre las posibilidades del Desarrollo Humano en el Perú.
... Strong correlations have been found between economic freedom and GDP per capita, economic growth, employment, human development, life expectancy, literacy and abatement of poverty (Grubel 1998). The evolution of the concept of economic freedom and its close relationship has already been found in the work of Sen. (Prendergast 2005). Sen insisted importance of positive freedom and the expansion of capabilities that people have to lead the kind of lives they value (Sen. ...
RATIONALE
The United Nations advocated the concept of Human Development as the goal of all member countries. Without economic freedom the opportunities to develop human capabilities couldn’t be increased. Economic theory indicates that economic freedom affects incentives, productive efforts and the effectiveness of resource use. From the time of Adam Smith, freedom had been used to choose supply resources, competition in business, trade and secure property rights for economic progress. Without exchange and entrepreneurial activity coordinated through markets, modern living standards would be impossible. The realization of human development is dependent on the presence of sound money, rule of law, and security of property rights, among other factors.
The qualitative model proposed for understanding the relationship between human capital and economic development confirms the importance of institutions (HDR 2003). An approach to the quantification of economic freedom has lately been undertaken by researchers from the Heritage Foundation and, as a result, the Index of Economic Freedom was edited and first published in 1995. As a measure of the level of economic freedom of a particular country Economic Freedom Index is also defined as a measure of globalization or as an institutional measure of sustainable development (Kowalczewski 2000; Pionek 2002).
... It encompasses the agent's capacity to control the choice and preference formation process. 6 Hence, as Prendergast (2005Prendergast ( : 1160 has observed, in Sen's work autonomy, which many thinkers would treat as part of positive freedom, 'is grouped alongside non-interference as part of the process aspect'. qua agents 'may go in somewhat different directions', sometimes choosing to 'value real opportunities to achieve certain things no matter how this is brought about', but also prioritising 'in many cases, the process of choice' (Sen, 2002: 10). ...
Robert Sugden has advanced various critiques of behavioural welfare economics, offering the notion of opportunity as an alternative. We agree with much of Sugden's critique but argue that his approach would benefit from a broadening of the informational base beyond opportunities to include people's concern for decision processes. We follow Amartya Sen in arguing that the process through which choices are made ( process freedom ) is something individuals care about beyond the availability of choice options ( opportunity freedom ) as they value a sense of agency. We argue that individuals’ agentic capabilities are crucial for people's process freedom and hence for their sense of agency. In the final section of the paper, we sketch the institutional implications of our argument, i.e. what a joint consideration of opportunities and agentic capabilities means for behavioural public policy.
... It encompasses the agent's capacity to control the choice and preference formation process. 6 Hence, as Prendergast (2005Prendergast ( : 1160 has observed, in Sen's work autonomy, which many thinkers would treat as part of positive freedom, "is grouped alongside non-interference as part of the process aspect." ...
... After all, quite in the spirit of Marx and not dissimilar to Sen, we view freedom as a socially conditioned phenomenon, often only realizable collectively and as a derivative of a set of concrete socio-economic possibilities (cf. Bowring, 2015: 156;Prendergast, 2005Prendergast, : 1147. ...
With contributions from six leading scientific countries of the Global North and from the general European Higher Education Area, this book questions the predominant view on academic freedom and pleads for a holistic approach. While academic freedom has been a top agenda point for the global scientific community in recent years, the public and academic discourse has often been marked by a negative interpretation of the term understood merely as exemption from state intervention and censorship. The contributions in this edited volume demonstrate, however, that this is not where the story ends: the ability to exercise academic freedom not only involves the freedom of expression in its abstract sense but should involve the capability to determine research agendas and curricula independently from market pressures or threats of career sabotage, and to resist workplace misconduct without fear of losing future career chances. Providing a differentiated picture of contemporary structural limits to academic freedom in advanced democracies, this volume will be of great interest for not only scholars of higher education, but for the entire academic community.
... It encompasses the agent's capacity to control the choice and preference formation process. 6 Hence, as Prendergast (2005Prendergast ( : 1160 has observed, in Sen's work autonomy, which many thinkers would treat as part of positive freedom, "is grouped alongside non-interference as part of the process aspect." ...
Robert Sugden has advanced various critiques of behavioural welfare economics, offering the notion of opportunity as an alternative. We agree with much of Sugden's critique but argue that his approach would benefit from a broadening of the informational base beyond opportunities to include people's concern for decision processes. We follow Amartya Sen in arguing that the process through which choices are made (process freedom) is something individuals care about beyond the availability of choice options (opportunity freedom) as they value a sense of agency. We argue that individuals' agentic capabilities are crucial for people's process freedom and hence for their sense of agency. In the final section of the paper, we sketch the institutional implications of our argument, i.e., what a joint consideration of opportunities and agentic capabilities means for behavioural public policy.
... Development has been equated with human freedom as it involves "…the removal of major sources of unfreedom" in a way that they are able to fight "economic poverty", social deprivation, etc., which have denied citizens of their basic physiological, social and political needs (Dare, 2009;Anand & Sen, 2007). The purpose of development, in the view of some scholars, is "to enlarge people's choices" at the financial, epistemological, nutritional and socio-cultural levels so that they can "enjoy long, healthy and creative live" (Haq, 2006;Prendergast, 2005). ...
A major target or the attainment of sustainable development is the maintenance of a healthy environment within the dynamics of natural resource development. In order to achieve this target, mechanisms are put in place to ensure that prior to and during the developmental process of the resource the environment is reasonably spared of the consequences the invasive exploitation activities. This makes it important for states to put in place laws and regulations that would guarantee the attainment of sustainable development in the natural resources section of its economy. Bitumen is one of the natural resource Nigeria has commenced commercial development in order to diversify its economy from a largely oil dependent one. Study has shown that bitumen, if not carefully monitored has a potentially more devastating environmental footprint than petroleum. This paper therefore examines two environmental statutes in Nigeria viz the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act and the National Environmental Standards and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Act, with the aim of ascertaining if their provisions are expansive enough to take care of bitumen’s processing requirements prior to and during development. The paper finds that these laws, in relation to bitumen development, have serious lacuna that could endanger the attainment of sustainable development in the Nigerian bitumen sector.
... 12) and encapsulates the 'self-determinist' approach. It is an approach to, rather than a theory of development and attempts simultaneously to embrace potentially contradictory notions of freedom (freedom of individual opportunity and freedom of systemic process); and yet implicitly or explicitly it supports a role for competitive markets (Prendergast, 2005;Dean, 2009). ...
Social rights may be understood as articulations of human need; as the mutual claims that human beings make upon one another as members of a uniquely social species. In recent times, collectively guaranteed social rights have been recognised in economically developed countries as rights of welfare state citizenship. But they have also been recognised as a core component of an international framework of human rights. The idea that human development necessarily entails social as well as economic development has resulted in rights-based approaches to policies and provision, on the one hand, for social protection and security, and on the other, for human services, such as healthcare, education and housing. Rights-based approaches, however, can take different forms and may prioritise: self-determination and individual freedom; the realisation of agreed standards of social provision; or the identification and eradication of poverty as a violation of human rights. Social rights are dynamic social constructs, central to social policy and development.
... Amartya Sen apresentou a abordagem das capacidades (Capability Approach) como uma proposta de paradigma para estudo do desenvolvimento humano (Sen, 2000;Machado e Pamplona, 2008), visando oferecer uma base objetiva para realizar comparações interpessoais do bem-estar (Prendergast, 2005;Robeyns, 2005;Machado e Pamplona, 2008). Esse modelo superaria, então, uma limitação da abordagem utilitarista, que não permite esse tipo de comparação, fundamental para a economia do bem-estar. ...
Resumo Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar como medidas de disponibilidade de acesso à internet e de competência de uso influenciam o uso de serviços de governo eletrônico no Brasil. A pesquisa se baseou na abordagem das capacidades de Amartya Sen para a análise dos microdados da pesquisa TIC Domicílios coordenada pelo Centro Regional de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento da Sociedade da Informação (CETIC.br), referente ao ano-base de 2013. Para o tratamento e a análise dos dados, empregou-se um conjunto de técnicas estatísticas multivariadas. Os resultados indicam que nas classes C, D e E o aumento da chance de uso de serviços de e-gov é fortemente influenciado pela disponibilidade de acesso à internet em casa ou no trabalho (acesso individual), assim como pela maior competência de uso de outros recursos da internet.
... Amartya Sen proposed the capability approach as a paradigm for studying human development (Sen, 2000;Machado and Pamplona, 2008), in order to offer an objective base to interpersonal comparisons of well-being (Prendergast, 2005;Robeyns, 2005;Machado and Pamplona, 2008). This model, therefore, overcomes the limitations of the utilitarian approach that does not permit this type of comparison which is fundamental to the welfare economy. ...
This article aims to analyze how measures to promote Internet access, and users' competencies influence the use of electronic government services in Brazil. We adopted Sen's Capability Approach as theoretical framework in order to analyze the microdata from the ICT Households 2013, a national-wide survey coordinated by the Regional Center for Studies on Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br). The results indicate that for social classes C (middle class), D and E (lower class) the increase in the odds ratio of the use of e-gov services is strongly influenced by both internet access preferably at home or work (individual access) as well as the users' internet skills.
... The Capability approach (Sen, 1999) was developed in order to offer an objective basis for interpersonal perceptions of welfare (Prendergast, 2005;Robeyns, 2002) thus overcoming limitations of the utilitarian approach, in which this type of comparison is essential for welfare economy, would not be possible. ...
This paper aims to categorize Brazilian Internet users according to the diversity of their online activities and to assess the propensity of these Internet users´ groups to use electronic government (e-gov) services. The Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach was adopted as the theoretical framework for its consideration of people’s freedom to decide on their use of available resources and their competencies for these decisions, leading to the use of e-gov services. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to perform data analysis from the 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions of ICT Household Survey. The results showed that Internet users belonging to the advanced and intermediate use groups were more likely to use e-gov services than those who belong to the sporadic use group. Moreover, the results also demonstrated that the Internet user group of intermediate use presented a higher tendency to use e-gov services than the Internet user group of advanced use. This tendency is possibly related to the extensive use of interactive and collaborative activities of leisure and entertainment performed by this type of user. The findings of this research may be useful in guiding public policies for the dissemination and provision of electronic government services in Brazil.
... The Capability approach [6] was developed in order to offer an objective basis for interpersonal perceptions of welfare [8,9] thus overcoming limitations of the utilitarian approach, in which this type of comparison -essential for the welfare economywould not be possible. According to the Capability Approach [6], simply providing a commodity or resource does not directly imply a direct increase in the welfare of a community, due to the multiple manners this resource can be used (capability) and the results obtained by the effective use of this commodity (functioning). ...
This paper explores the micro-data from the ICT Households Survey in order to categorize the Brazilian Internet users according to the diversity of activities undertaken by these users on-line and assess the propensity of these Internet user groups to use e-gov services. The Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach was adopted as theoretical framework for its consideration of people’s freedom to decide on their use of the available resources and their competencies for these decisions, leading to the use of e-government services. This paper uses a positivistic approach a descriptive and exploratory analysis of secondary data (micro-data) from the 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions of the ICT Household survey.
... Sen viewed development as a means of supporting the capability or 'valuable being and doings' of those involved and, thereby, enabling access to both resources and choices around these capabilities (Alkire, 2002). Over the years, much discursive space has been devoted to both support for, additions to, and critiques of the approach and ancillary arguments (Sugden, 1993;Gasper, 1997Gasper, , 2007Nussbaum, 1999Nussbaum, , 2000Prendergast, 2005;Qizilibash, 2011). But difficulties in 'operationalisation' led to the view that although notions of capabilities should be inherent to development, the related 'doings' and 'functionings' were simply too difficult to measure. ...
Within the literature, many authors have argued that the rapid growth of the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) has resulted in an emphasis on the applications rather than on theory. However, it is clear that it is not theories, rather the integration of theory and practice, that is often lacking. To address this gap, the authors begin by exploring some of the popular theoretical approaches to ICT4D with a view to identifying those theories relevant to shared impacts: development, delivery and communication. To unify practice and theory, we offer a framework to directly assess the impact of ICT4D on development. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... This broad definition of development has not been accepted by all economists (e.g. Navarro 2000;Prendergast 2005). It has been attacked as vague, difficult to measure compared with something like per capita GDP. ...
There has been considerable debate about how best to define sustainable development. In this commentary, I argue that Amartya Sen's concept of 'development as freedom' is the appropriate theoretical framework for understanding sustainable development. Environmentalists should consider defining their goal as 'sustainable development as freedom,' the achievement of the greatest possible level of freedom without restricting the access of future generations to these same freedoms. The adoption of this framework has implications for the work of environmental NGOs, which are briefly discussed.
... Prendergast (2005) note que progressivement Sen s'est plus intéressé aux procédures du marché, comme garant des libertés en particulier, plutôt qu'aux résultats produits par les marchés. 17 On trouve chez Walras une formulation très explicite de cette perspective dans la définition de la justice dans l'échange. ...
SEN, democracy and the market : a critical assessment
SEN’s system of political economy is assumed to offer a renewed outlook on justice and development. This system is supposed to overcome the mainstream economics. But the critical dimension of SEN’s work must be assessed. His representation of competitive markets is in fact very close to the dominant liberal paradigm. This arises many questions concerning both SEN’s arguments in favor of democracy and the way he deals with justice dilemmas relating to free markets in developing countries. Capabilities’ approach should be mobilized eventually against SEN for a radical interpretation of social and economic inequalities and the way to attack them.
Why is developmentalism as an economic school aimed at the industrialisation of peripheral nations? Based on a reading of key authors from both the ‘American System of political economy’ of the 19th century and the Latin American structuralist and dependency schools of the 20th century, this article suggests that the answer lies, not in an economic, but in a political dimension: to ensure the material basis for national freedom. To sustain this hypothesis, the article argues that there is a common implicit conception of freedom shared by Alexander Hamilton, Henry Carey and Friedrich List, on the side of the American school, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Raúl Prebisch, Celso Furtado and Osvaldo Sunkel, from the Latin American school. This conception is heir to the idea of Machiavelli’s Free State, its core is the notion of liberty as non-dependency and collective autonomy and identifies in industrialisation the way for a periphery to be able to live without depending on the arbitrary will of foreign powers. This definition differs from both the liberal and capability conceptions of freedom and allows for the identification of forms of domination that occur between nations and through the global market that requires the peripheries to erect autonomous collective productive capabilities for their overcoming.
Increased residential energy consumption and reduced income caused by the lockdown measures invoked to combat the COVID-19 pandemic have deepened energy poverty, particularly in vulnerable communities. In this context, the pathway through which COVID-19 impacts energy poverty is constructed, and six relief measures are proposed: consistent financing of energy suppliers and consumers, developing various forms of socio-economic aids, leveraging fiscal stimuli to promote renewable energy transition, identifying vulnerable populations to improve policy effectiveness, designing equitable resource allocation mechanisms, and rethinking socio-economic transition in the post-pandemic era.
This study addresses freedom, work and organisation by problematising Amartya Sen’s pluralistic notion of (development as) freedom through a fieldwork study of a Filipino NGO that promotes sustainable agriculture. In this context, peasant farmers face increasing threat from intersecting agrarian and climate crises, exacerbated by mainstream economic paradigms for agricultural development. For Sen, development encompasses the process of expanding the ‘substantive freedoms’ of people (freedom to), and removing sources of ‘unfreedom’ (freedom from). However, it is not clear in Sen’s work how such freedoms are relationally constituted and thus the manner of the ‘labour of agential becoming’ (Amer, 2021) at the core of Sen’s thought. We therefore ask: How do agroecological work and organisational practices of grassroots development promote freedom for small-scale farmers under climate threat in the Global South? Our analysis identifies a novel form of freedom - labelled ‘freedom with’ – defined as a set of relational, multi-actor capabilities and organising practices that constitute alternative, future-oriented ways of doing and being. ‘Freedom with’ enables us to better understand how and why the labour of agential becoming works, offering a theoretical extension of Sen’s notion of freedom with implications for debates in our field on sustainability and beyond-capitalist organising.
L'approche par les capabilites se sen est venue rendre a l'economique son ethique, en mettant l'accent sur les valeurs reelles d'une vie humaine digne. l'enjeu de la these consiste a etudier l'apport de cette approche concernant deux point essentiels : la redefinition du developpement en terme de capabilites. il s'agit de reconsiderer le processus du developpement comme etant un processus d'expansion des libertes reelles dont jouissent les individus. une base theorique d'etude de la pauvrete multidimensionnelle. dans cette logique, l'espace des capabilites - defini comme l'ensemble des combinaisons d'actions et de choix individuels - est juge plus approprie pour definir la pauvrete. sur ce point, nous analyserons, a partir de donnees francaises fournies par le dispositifs epcv, les privations en France.
The aim of this paper is to show how the concepts of agency, capability, and functioning can be aligned in a way that put in evidence the centrality of individual agency. Usually, discussion about the capabilities approach focuses on the limitations and flaws of the theory; here it will be argued that even with limitations and possible problems the capabilities approach could mean a significant paradigm shift for how we think and make Law and public policies. The method used will to analyze some of the principal texts about the subject and to discuss new elements and perspectives that could be brought to bear on the topic. In the end, the article points to a broader way to use the principles and theory of the capabilities approach to describe and analyze legal theory.
In 2017 famine struck yet again. While famine continues to haunt many fragile countries, the paper reveals a faltering scholarly interest in famine research, particularly within the research tradition of development studies. Today, the research field is rather dominated by the research traditions of history and economics. Interestingly, the steepest decline in scholarly attention to famine coincided with Amartya Sen being awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 in part for his work on famine. The paper points to three characteristics of famine research that might account for this rather puzzling development: (i) the field of contemporary famine research exhibits limited interest in theory-building; (ii) the field is impeded by inaccessibility to key research sites; and (iii) the field is weakened by a small and dispersed research community. The paper suggests remedies that might address these obstacles to contemporary famine research in development studies. To facilitate more theoretical development, scholars could engage with the recent call for a criminalisation of famine, and the broader field of disaster research could be used as an institutional catalyst for scholars of famine.
Capabilities theory provides a vision of human flourishing that is inspired by Aristotle’s ethics. It makes the central claim that a good human life is one marked by the freedom to cultivate and exercise a set of capabilities that people have reason to value. From this point of view, a just society is one that fosters the conditions that are necessary for the development and exercise of the full range of human capabilities. Businesses can play a role in promoting this vision of justice within their own organizations and in the societies in which they operate. In order to fulfill that role, the ends of business and good management must be expanded to include the goal of expanding human capabilities and the common good.
Capabilities theory provides a vision of human flourishing that is inspired by Aristotle’s ethics. It makes the central claim that a good human life is one marked by the freedom to cultivate and exercise a set of capabilities that people have reason to value. From this point of view, a just society is one that fosters the conditions that are necessary for the development and exercise of the full range of human capabilities. Businesses can play a role in promoting this vision of justice within their own organizations and in the societies in which they operate. In order to fulfill that role, the ends of business and good management must be expanded to include the goal of expanding human capabilities and the common good.
This work in progress is a multiple case study, no experimental or Ex Post Facto. This research is aimed to compare three methodologies in two different countries to find out which one has a higher impact in the development of Self-regulated learning skills in Primary School Pupils.
Also a reflection is made on why this schools and alternative education (homeschooling, democratic education, forest schools…) are not legal in Spain comparing Spanish educational system with the one in Scotland.
We will try to stablish relationships between the teaching methods used in classrooms and the level of self-regulation showed by pupils.
In order to build a complete vision of the methods mentioned earlier, qualitative and quantitative information have been gathered.
-Quantitative information: Test to evaluate the state of skills
-Qualitative information: Observation and semi-structured interview for teachers.
The goal of this paper is to present the work of Amartya Sen. Sen was born the year 1933 in Santiniketan, West Bengala (India). He studied at Calcutta University and later in Cambridge (United Kingdom). He has been teaching in different Universities in India, United Kingdom and the United States. He has also been President of different professional associations and has influenced in several international institutions such as the World Bank and different UN agencies. He received in 1998 the Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions in the field of welfare economics. It's no wonder that his extensive work occupies a fully deserved place in the field of political economy and has also generated a considerable controversy in this of political philosophy. His economic contributions cover a broad agenda, from social choice theory to inequalities, including methodologies for their measurement. He has also covered the fields of welfare economics and the theory of justice, arguing with John Rawls. His work, globally considered, gravitates around the problems of economic development, from a global and explicit perspective; so, in his book on the subject synthesis Development as Freedom, published in 1999, Sen indicates that “the expansion of freedom in his approach is both the primary purpose of development and the primary means”. His philosophical background allows him to deal rigorously non-current topics for economists or to incorporate philosophical thoughts in an economic discourse. This aspect may be surprising because it is common that the philosophical- ethical dimension –the ideological dimension– is implicit, non-visible in a text apparently analytical and neutral.
Sen’s ‘capability approach’ is especially focused on human development as freedom from deprivations, while Scitovsky’s The Joyless Economy is focused on how people can expand their internal capability endogenously by enjoying learning as a socially embedded process. This paper uses the complementarity between the two authors to build a comprehensive dynamic approach to people’s ‘functionings and capabilities’. Different groups of ‘functionings’ are thus characterised by their different patterns of development in interaction with the resources available and the social context. As a result, Sen’s problems of evaluating ‘functionings’ and measuring ‘capability’ can be alleviated; harmful functionings can be predicted; children’s welfare can be better evaluated; and Sen’s definitions of ‘capability’, ‘agency’ and ‘well-being’ can be refined.
Sen’s entitlement approach treats famines as socio-economic problems rather than food availability problems. The approach focuses on the set of alternative commodity bundles that can be acquired through legal channels of acquirement. Entitlement failures occur when it is no longer possible to acquire commodity bundles with enough food to survive. Hence, a famine need not occur because of lack of food but could be caused purely by distributional dynamics such as a rise in food prices, a fall in wages, a termination of state transfers, and so on. While the entitlement approach is a useful tool in a disaggregated impact analysis, several scholars have argued that the entitlement approach devotes insufficient analytical attention to issues of food production, legal structures and socio-political dimensions. The chapter discusses the analytical implications of this criticism, and makes the case for supplementing the entitlement approach with macro-level analyses of political dynamics.
There is an immense worldwide focus on microfinance as a means to abate poverty. What began as small loans provided to microentrepreneurs for business purposes has come to include consumer loans and other financial services for the poor, provided in an increasingly commercial environment. Microfinance has experienced rapid growth and created high expectations due to its perceived ability to produce economic benefits and lead to improvements in areas like gender relations and health and education. Microcredit has been especially useful for vulnerable, self-employed individuals working in the informal economy.
However, microfinance is not an effective tool to spur economic growth on a national or even regional level, and cannot live up to the hopes it has produced. This thesis will look at important concerns and limitations related to what has become a global microfinance movement. The analysis is influenced by experiences as an intern in Paraguay with Fundación Paraguaya, a development organization that offers group and individual microloans.
Challenging assumptions about the benefits of specific development practices, this book provides readers with overview of how competing frameworks have developed and the ways that specific development practices reflect specific understandings of the main debates, as well as offering a comprehensive historical overview of attempts to achieve economic development. It: • offers a historical overview of the main debates and how they have evolved over time • undertakes an examination (or rather re-examination) of the relationship between agriculture and poverty alleviation • presents an exploration of recent international development negotiations from the perspective of OECD countries. Drawing on the lessons of some six decades of development experiences and illuminating theoretical insights and accumulated empirical knowledge, this book is a key resource for all students of development studies and development economics.
A key task within the capability approach is the selection of relevant capabilities. The question of how to select capabilities has divided capability theorists into two camps: those who argue that it is a philosophical task and those who argue that it is a matter for the public. In this paper, I argue that this distinction between philosophy and democracy is counterproductive to the operationalization of the capability approach. On the one hand, proponents of the philosophical position overestimate the need for philosophical theorizing when selecting capabilities. On the other hand, proponents of the democratic positions can benefit from addressing issues raised by philosophers. I conclude that rather than making the philosophical position more democratically sensitive, we should search out ways in which philosophy can reinforce democratic processes in general and in relation to the selection of capabilities in particular.
The paper addresses the problem of justifying the derivation of ethically sound dimensions of poverty or well-being for use in a multidimensional framework. We combine Sen’s capability approach and Rawls’ method of political constructivism and argue that the constitution and its interpretative practice can serve as an ethically suitable informational basis for selecting dimensions, under certain conditions. We illustrate our Constitutional Approach by deriving a set of well-being dimensions from an analysis of the Italian Constitution. We argue that this method is both an improvement on those used in the existing literature from the ethical point of view, and has a strong potential for providing the basis of societal agreement on how well-being should be conceived of for public affairs. In the final part, we elaborate on the implications for measuring well-being based on data, by ranking Italian regions in terms of wellbeing, and pointing out the differences in results produced by different methods.
This paper explores the micro-data from the ICT Households Survey in order to categorize the Brazilian Internet users according to the diversity of activities undertaken by these users on-line and assess the propensity of these Internet user groups to use e-gov services. The Amartya Sen's Capability Approach was adopted as theoretical framework for its consideration of people's freedom to decide on their use of the available resources and their competencies for these decisions, leading to the use of e-government services. This paper uses a positivistic approach a descriptive and exploratory analysis of secondary data (micro-data) from the 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions of the ICT Household survey.
Mesmo sendo uma condição indispensável para que ocorra o desenvolvimento humano, a riqueza econômica nem sempre é convertida eficientemente em qualidade de vida pelos Estados-nação. Deste modo, se buscará neste livro uma forma de se mensurar e explicar a "eficiência social", que expressa a capacidade de um Estado-nação de converter sua riqueza econômica em qualidade de vida. Como hipóteses para os fatores explicativos dessa eficiência, foram considerados: a atuação do Estado, do Mercado e da Sociedade Civil; o estoque de capital físico, natural, humano, cultural, social e institucional; a presença de liberdades política, econômica e de expressão; e outras características socioeconômicas dos países. Os principais resultados obtidos indicaram que: as ex-repúblicas soviéticas e os países de passado socialista foram os que mais se destacaram na eficiência social; os países desenvolvidos, apesar de apresentarem elevados indicadores sociais, não se destacaram nessa eficiência; e os países do sul da África, além de possuírem a pior condição social, foram também os mais ineficientes.
This paper explores the data from the Brazilian “ICT in households and enterprises Survey” in order to understand how the individuals’ use of e-government services is related to the location of access to the internet and their usage capabilities. The research uses Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach, with results indicating that for all social classes the use of e-government is strongly related to users’ capabilities, expressed by their use of e-mail, e-commerce and e-finance and that its use is favored by home and workplace access to the internet over other alternatives, such as lan-houses and public telecentres. The paper also discusses its implications for public policy making.
Amartya Sen's enlarged conception of freedom has augmented the scope of economic analysis but it also has had the surprising effect of being more supportive of the free market than conventional welfare economics. It is argued here that a comparison of Sen's position with that of the American institutionalist, J R Commons, highlights some problems with Sen's approach and points to possible ways in which they might be addressed.
The aim of this article is to examine the capability approach of Amartya Sen and mainstream economic theory in terms of their epistemological, methodological and philosophical/cultural aspects. The reason for undertaking this analysis is the belief that Sen’s capability approach, contrary to some economists’ claim, is uncongenial to mainstream economic views on epistemology and methodology (not on ontologically). However, while some social scientists regard that Sen, on the whole, is a mainstream economist, his own approach strongly criticizes both the theory and practice of mainstream economics.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is an important body of the United Nations for development issues. It is also responsible for the construction and publication of the Human Development Index (HDI). The UNDP is present in more than 166 countries and exerts an influence on the theory and practice of economic development. It is very important to define the elements which allow the establishment of limits to the UNDP?s action. The purpose of this paper is to identify, classify and critically explain the theoretical basis for the paradigm of human development, on which its line of work has been based. The capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen is the theoretical basis for the paradigm of human development. This approach is very convenient for the pragmatic and consensual nature of the UNDP?s action because it proposes a greater focus on the expansion of individual capabilities, but without calling for structural changes in the international economic order.
The objective of the paper is to invite to an interdisciplinary dialogue. The first part presents a summary of the “capabilities approach†that stresses the expansion of freedom as the goal. In this perspective, underdevelopment means the existence of very few alternative ways of life for the people. Poverty means deprivation of opportunities to lead a life. Development has to be evaluated in terms of the capability of persons to function in valuable ways that are reasonably argued. In the second part we present briefly three examples of interdisciplinary dialogue. The first, with the economy around the costs and benefits of development in terms of freedom, and about how free one can be in and with respect to the economy. The second suggests a critical view of the freedom to live under liberal constitutions. The third, introduces a reflection on the importance of freedom from a Christian perspective.
In a recent discussion of Amartya Sen s concept of the capabilities of people for functioning in their society and the idea of targeting people s functioning capabilities in evaluating the society G. A. Cohen accuses Sen of espousing an inappropriate, athletic image of the person (Cohen, 1993, pp. 24 5). The idea is that if Sen s formulations are to be taken at face value, then life is valuable only so far as people actively choose most facets of their existence: if they fare well in the material stakes, for example, they must fare well as a result of active choice and effort, not because anyone else looks after them. That , says Cohen, overestimates the place of freedom and activity in well-being (p. 25).
This paper looks at the influence of Hegel’s work on Marshall after first clarifying the circumstances under which Marshall may have become acquainted with Hegel’s work. It concludes that Hegel’s Philosophy of History influenced the young Marshall on a variety of important points, that these persevered in parts of the Principles but that a visible Hegel influence was graduately reduced with the successive editions of the Principles. In addition, Marshall appears to have adapted Hegel to fit his own requirements, as he did with other sources of his work.
In this book G. A. Cohen examines the libertarian principle of self-ownership, which says that each person belongs to himself and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else. This principle is used to defend capitalist inequality, which is said to reflect each person's freedom to do as as he wishes with himself. The author argues that self-ownership cannot deliver the freedom it promises to secure, thereby undermining the idea that lovers of freedom should embrace capitalism and the inequality that comes with it. He goes on to show that the standard Marxist condemnation of exploitation implies an endorsement of self-ownership, since, in the Marxist conception, the employer steals from the worker what should belong to her, because she produced it. Thereby a deeply inegalitarian notion has penetrated what is in aspiration an egalitarian theory. Purging that notion from socialist thought, he argues, enables construction of a more consistent egalitarianism.
The book offers the first full‐length treatment in English of Hegel's idea of freedom. It explores his theory of what it is for an individual to be free and his account of the social and political contexts in which freedom is developed, realized, and sustained. The book investigates a number of central questions concerning Hegel's ethics and political theory. Is Hegel's outlook unacceptably conservative? Can freedom be equated with rational self‐determination? Is there any special connection between freedom and citizenship? By offering interpretations of Hegel's views on these and other questions, the book develops a novel ‘civic humanist’ reading of Hegel's social philosophy, one that restores to its proper, central place Hegel's idea of freedom. The book is written in a clear and jargon‐free style and will be of interest to anyone concerned with Hegel's ethical, social, and political thought and the sources of contemporary ideas about freedom, community, and the state.
This paper reviews Peter Groenewegen's biography of Alfred Marshall. It addresses issues such as the nature and formation of Marshall's vision, his attitude towards the facts, his status as a neoclassical economist and his attitude towards laissez-faire. Groenewegen's depiction of Marshall as a theorist of economic development and not of static resource allocation is supported, as is his conclusion that Marshall's opposition to government intervention was on entrepreneurial grounds and did not involve any commitment to the ideology of laissez-faire.
Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers orconstraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions areavailable to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is thepossibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such away as to take control of one's life and realize one's fundamentalpurposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individualagents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, orto individuals considered primarily as members of givencollectivities., Imagine you are driving a car through town, and you come to a forkin the road. You turn left, but no one was forcing you to go one way orthe other. Next you come to a crossroads. You turn right, but no onewas preventing you from going left or straight on. There is no trafficto speak of and there are no diversions or police roadblocks. So youseem, as a driver, to be completely free. But this picture of yoursituation might change quite dramatically if we consider that thereason you went left and then right is that you're addicted tocigarettes and you're desperate to get to the tobacconists before itcloses. Rather than driving, you feel you are beingdriven, as your urge to smoke leads you uncontrollably to turn thewheel first to the left and then to the right. Moreover, you'reperfectly aware that your turning right at the crossroads means you'llprobably miss a train that was to take you to an appointment you careabout very much. You long to be free of this irrational desire that isnot only threatening your longevity but is also stopping you right nowfrom doing what you think you ought to be doing., action textbar autonomy: in moral and political philosophy textbar autonomy: personal textbar Berlin, Isaiah textbar civil rights textbar coercion textbar freedom: of speech textbar free will textbar legal rights textbar liberalism textbar libertarianism textbar limits of law textbar paternalism textbar republicanism textbar rights textbar rights: human, Copyright © 2012 byIan Cartertextlessicarter@unipv.ittextgreater , View this site from another server:,
In The Joyless Economy, Tibor Scitovsky proposes a model of human behavior that differs substantially from that of standard economic theory. Scitovsky begins with a basic distinction between “comfort” and “stimulation.” While stimulation is ultimately more satisfying and creative, we frequently fall for the bewitching attractions of comfort, which leads to impoverished lives. Scitovsky's analysis has far‐reaching implications not only for the idea of rationality, but for the concept of utility (by making it plural in nature) and, perhaps most importantly, for the importance of freedom (including the freedom to change our preferences).
Is there anything morally special about free exchange? In asking this, I am asking not only about extreme, so-called “libertarian” views, on which free exchange is sacrosanct, but about more widespread, moderate views, on which there is at least something morally special about free exchange. On these more compromising views, other moral considerations may override the moral importance of free exchange, but even when rights of free exchange are restricted for good reason, something morally important is lost. For some, free exchange may preserve liberty, in some morally significant sense, or realize some such moral value as “to each his own.” Alternatively, a system of free exchange may have a special moral status by virtue of the kinds of pragmatic arguments that economists give, arguments that free exchange produces good social results. Whether free exchange has any such virtues as these is the broad question I address in this paper. I offer what I have to say somewhat in the spirit of an overview. Philosophical scrutiny and economic analysis combine, it seems to me, to delineate fairly clearly what is, and what is not, morally special about free exchange.
How valuable is the market mechanism for practical morality? What is its moral standing? We can scarcely doubt that as individuals we do value tremendously the opportunity of using markets. Indeed, without access to markets most of us would perish, since we don't typically produce the things that we need to survive. If we could somehow survive without using markets at all, our quality of life would be rather abysmal. It is natural to feel that an institution that is so crucial to our well-being must be valuable. And since moral evaluation can hardly be indifferent to our interests and their fulfillment, it might appear that there is nothing much to discuss here. The market's moral standing “has to be” high.
I am most grateful to Elizabeth Anderson (2000), Philip Pettit (2000) and Thomas Scanlon (2000) for making such insightful and penetrating comments on my work and the related literature. I have reason enough to be happy, having been powerfully defended in some respects and engagingly challenged in others. I must also take this opportunity of thanking Martha Nussbaum, for not only chairing the session in which these papers were presented followed by a splendid discussion (which she led), but also for taking the initiative, in the first place, to arrange the session.
According to an often repeated definition, economics is the science of individual choices and their consequences. The emphasis on choice is often used implicitly or explicitly to mark a contrast between markets and the state: While the price mechanism in well-functioning markets preserves freedom of choice and still efficiently coordinates individual actions, the state has to rely to some degree on coercion to coordinate individual actions. Since coercion should not be used arbitrarily, coordination by the state needs to be legitimized by the consent of its citizens. The emphasis in economic theory on freedom of choice in the market sphere suggests that legitimization in the market sphere is automatic and that markets can thus avoid the typical legitimization problem of the state. In this paper, I shall question the alleged dichotomy between legitimization in the market and in the state. I shall argue that it is the result of a conflation of choice and consent in economics and show how an independent concept of consent makes the need for legitimization of market transactions visible.
Sen's book raises a variety of new and important issues concerning human wellbeing and its measurement. However it also leaves plenty of open questions and uncovered ground. Its argument for shifting our attention from commodities to functionings is powerful and I hope this will find increasing favour among welfare economists and other social scientists. Regarding its argument for shifting attention from achievements to capabilities, I am more skeptical.
Some of the concepts developed in this book can have important applications to questions beyond that of measurement, questions which Sen does not touch on in this book. For instance, the concept of ‘exploitation’ is difficult to describe in a utility-based framework. This is because people who are chronically exploited learn to adjust to their predicament and may achieve a reasonable level of utility and may not even strive for change. A definition of exploitation based on utility or choice would fail to identify such people. The concept of well-being can be useful in identifying the chronically exploited. This is just one of many possible directions that can be pursued from here.
Frank H. Knight (1885-1972) was a central figure in the development of the "Chicago School of Economics" at the University of Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, where he taught future Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, George Stigler and many others. It was Knight's embedded scepticism about the reach of economic knowledge that set the stage for the laissez-faire economics that matured at the University in the 1950s and 1960s. But as important as Knight's technical economic contributions were, he never strayed far from his broad philosophical interests and concern for the state of modern liberal democracy. Ross B. Emmett's selection of Knight's essays offers a picture of the work of this social scientist over the span of his career. Included are not only Knight's most influential writings, but also a number of uncollected papers. The essays illustrate Knight's views on the central debates regarding economics, social science, ethics, education and modern liberalism. Volume 2: "Laissez Faire: Pro and Con" contains 14 of Knight's papers from 1940 through 1967, including "Socialism: The Nature of The Problem" and "The Sickness of Liberal Society".
This paper reflects on consequentialism which underlies the traditional normative economics. It asserts that the informational basis of normative economics should be expanded so that the intrinsic value of social choice procedures should be properly taken into account along with the value of their consequences. Three examples - the problem of fair cake division, the role of competition in the promotion of economic welfare, and bilateral trade restrictions - are invoked to pinpoint the services rendered by procedural considerations in making social welfare judgements. The Pareto libertarian paradox is also re-examined within the extended framework incorporating procedural considerations along with consequential considerations.
Amartya Sen has sought to maintain a dialogue with mainstream economics on inequality-a continuing theme in his writing. This paper suggests this dialogue has involved costs. The first and second sections outline where Sen has located himself in the epistemological range that defines acceptable knowledge in the general economics discourse and takes Sen's epistemological principles into the analysis of economic inequality. The third section links Sen's work on causes of famine with his work on inequality and shows how this has given a particular slant to the development of capabilities theory with a focus on the lower end of the inter-personal inequality distribution. The fourth section focuses on the need also for development ethics at the top end of the inequality distribution and economic opulence. The conclusion makes the case for further critical reflection on the top end of the inter-personal distribution and opulence as vital elements in the capabilities approach to improving the human condition, even if this means a greater distancing from mainstream economics than Amartya Sen has found acceptable in the past. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
We consider the role of preferences in the assessment of an agent's freedom, visualized as the opportunity for choice. After discussing several possible intuitive approaches to the problem, we explore an approach based on the notion of preference orderings that a reasonable person may possibly have. Using different sets of axioms, we characterize the rules for ranking opportunity sets in terms of freedom. We also show that certain axioms for ranking opportunity sets are incompatible.
The article discusses recent attempts in rational choice theory to take account of the opportunity aspect of freedom, i.e., the value of alternatives, in measuring freedom. It is argued that each of these approaches (in terms of fixed preferences, of possible future preferences and of the preferences of reasonable persons) fails to solve important conceptual problems. Furthermore, we argue that differences between measures of opportunity freedom reflect different moral standards for the quality of alternatives, not different conceptions of freedom as such. Hence, we propose to separate discussions about the meaning of the concept of freedom from the issue of determining the value of opportunity sets.
The growth of young, technology-based firms has received considerable attention in the literature given their importance for the generation and creation of economic wealth. Taking a strategic management perspective, we link the entrepreneurial strategy deployed by young, technology-based firms with firm growth. In line with recent research, we consider both revenue and employment growth as they reflect different underlying value creation processes. Using a unique European dataset of research-based spin-offs, we find that firms emphasizing a product and hybrid strategy are positively associated with growth in revenues. The latter strategy also has a positive influence on the creation of additional employment. Contrary to expectation, however, we find that firms pursuing a technology strategy do not grow fast in employment. Our study sheds new light on the relationship between entrepreneurial strategy and firm growth in revenues and employment.
This paper presents an analysis and an assessment of Amartya Sen's capability approach. In the first part, it gives a detailed explanation of the capability approach. It analyses the core concepts and tries to clarify confusions in the literature by looking at different interpretations and usages. In the second part of the paper the major critiques on the capability approach are scrutinised. It is argued that some of those critiques are based on mistaken interpretations, while others follow from a too narrow reading. At the same time it is recognised that theoretical and empirical applications of the capability approach nevertheless remain to address a number of difficulties. The paper also includes an annotated survey of the existing empirical applications. Ultimately, both the assessment of the critiques as well as the survey of applications provide support for Sen's claim to see the capability approach as a framework of thought, which can address diverse problems and can be applied in quite different ways.
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