GLOBEMED’S GLOBAL HEALTH EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT CURRICULUM
globalhealthU Track 2, Week 1
Exploring The Theories Of Amartya Sen Notable Quotes: ✦ ✦
“While I am interested both in economics and in philosophy, the union of my interests in the two fields far exceeds their intersection” “Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedoms: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance of over-activity of repressive stated”
Biography Amartya Sen is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1988 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. Sen is 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. He is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, distinguished fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he previously served as Master from 1998 to 2004. He is the first Indian and the first Asian academic to head an Oxbridge college.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.”1
Major Theories Sen’s central thesis is that freedom is both the desired end and the principal means of development. He looks past quantitative factors such as growth in GDP or rising personal incomes, as he claims that the only acceptable evaluation of human progress is primarily and ultimately the enhancement of freedom. To him the entire achievement of development is dependent on the free agency of people.2 Sen diverges from the popular belief that economic growth must happen before societies can afford to look after the social welfare of their people. He instead argues that welfare expenditures can spur economic growth, especially since they are labor intensive and labor is extremely cheap in poor countries. National projects, such as building health clinics, not only provide welfare to citizens, but also create jobs. Because wages in impoverished countries are low, such projects also place little economic burden on domestic governments. He insists that we should approach political freedoms and civil rights not as something that can eventually be achieved through increased GDP or per capita income, but as a direct good in their own right. Freedom is also good because it stimulates economic growth.3 There are five essential freedoms that Sen discusses: political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security. All of these are important in facilitating individual initiative and 1
GLOBEMED’S GLOBAL HEALTH EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT CURRICULUM
globalhealthU social effectiveness. They enhance the ability of individuals to help themselves, a quality that Sen describes as the ‘agent aspecy’ of the individual.4 Sen’s definition of poverty exists on an individual level: it is the depravation of basic, individual capabilities. He “never attempts to derive the social origins of ethics, or their historical or cultural specificity, or the ways in which some kind of capability may be socially organized rather than just a sum of individual capacities. Social capabilities are derived from individual ones and, although Sen recognizes a need for social institutions, it is only to buttress individual freedoms that may be suppressed by imperfections of capitalism that arise from wrong-headed approaches to development.” There is no way to substitute for individual responsibility. Sen thus believes in an unregulated market that gives people the freedom to decide where to work, what to produce and what to consume.5 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue8-focus1 http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue8-focus1 http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue8-focus1 http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue8-focus1
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Amartya Sen’s Ethics of Substantial Freedom: Provides the theoretical foundation for most of Amartya Sen’s economic theories. http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/ethics/senethic.htm Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom: A detailed discussion on Sen’s economic theories as well as a thorough critique of both the strengths and weaknesses of his arguments. http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue8-focus1 The Man Without a Plan: Amartya Sen critiques William Easterly’s book The Whitman’s Burden, providing a discussion of both Easterly’s strengths and weaknesses. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/61525/amartya-sen/the-man-without-a-plan
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