Development as Freedom

Introduction: Development as Freedom -- 1. The Perspective of Fredom -- 2. The ends and the Means of Development -- 3. Freedom and the Foundations of ustice -- 4. Povertyas Capability Deprivation -- 5. Markets, States, nd Social Opportunity -- 6. The Importane of Democracy -- 7. Famines and Other Crises -- 8. Women'sAgency ndSocial Chnge -- 9. Population, Food and Freedom -- 10. Culture and HumanRights -- 11. Social Choice and Individual Behavior -- 12. Individual Freedom as a Social Commitment. "In 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."--Provided by publisher By the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Economics, an essential and paradigm-altering framework for understanding economic development--for both rich and poor--in the twenty-first century. Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world's entire population. Releasing the idea of individual freedom from association with any particular historical, intellectual, political, or religious tradition, Sen clearly demonstrates its current applicability and possibilities. In the new global economy, where, despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to vast numbers--perhaps even the majority of people--he concludes, it is still possible to practically and optimistically restain a sense of social accountability. Development as Freedom is essential reading. The winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics presents an incisive explication of his theory of global economic development, that links individual human freedom and the welfare of the world's population with worldwide economic development