Further Education
Development as Freedom
by Amartya Sen (1999)
When Sen, an Indian-born Cambridge economist, 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. Sen here argues that open dialogue,
civil freedoms and political liberties are prerequisites for sustainable development. He tests his theory with examples ranging from
the former Soviet bloc to Africa, but he puts special emphasis on China and India. How does one explain the recent gulf in economic
progress between authoritarian yet fast-growing China and democratic, economically laggard India? For Sen, the answer is clear:
India, with its massive neglect of public education, basic health care and literacy, was poorly prepared for a widely shared
economic expansion; China, on the other hand, having made substantial advances in those areas, was able to capitalize on its market
reforms. Yet Sen demolishes the notion that a specific set of "Asian values" exists that might provide a justification for
authoritarian regimes. He observes that China's coercive system has contributed to massive famine and that Beijing's compulsory
birth control policy “only one child per family” has led to fatal neglect of female children. Though not always easy reading for the
layperson, Sen's book is an admirable and persuasive effort to define development not in terms of GDP but in terms of "the real
freedoms that people enjoy”.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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