amartya sen development as freedom summary

Certainly, personal choice and responsibility should be key to development strategies that respect the dignity of the human condition beyond individuals’ productive capacities. So far so good this is a welcome departure from the prevalent focus on material deprivation and the overemphasis on structures. Efforts to overcome poverty should be based upon the removal of “unfreedoms” that prevent people from making full use of their capabilities, and by increasing the opportunities individuals have to take responsibility for and act as authors of their own lives. Perhaps Sen's strongest contribution is that instead of taking low income as the primary indicator of underdevelopment (and by extension economic growth as development), he identifies the expansion of freedom as both the means and end of development. If you don't agree with that basic assumption (I don't), the rest of this book will be unsatisfying. While he's not as dogmatic as some of his neoliberal peers, Sen doesn't really move very far beyond the default paradigm that takes the expansion of free markets to be the basic solution to underdevelopment. But - of course there's a but - when it comes down to the actual content and evidence of some of his works there are some gaping holes that fundamentally undermine the persuasiveness of his arguments. For this reason, it's hard not to like him.

His arguments are consistently predicated upon a genuine respect for humanity and a desire to eliminate the poverty that plagues most of the world. Here's the thing about Amartya Sen: everything he writes oozes humility and compassion, and his optimism is both refreshing and contagious. In 2006, Time magazine listed him under '60 years of Asian Heroes' and in 2010 included him in their '100 most influential persons in the world'. He is a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security. He is the first Asian and the first Indian academic to head an Oxbridge college.Īmartya Sen's books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he previously served as Master from the years 1998 to 2004. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. Sen was best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceived shortages of food. Amartya Kumar Sen is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members.

Amartya sen development as freedom summary