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Development, Marginalities and Sustainable Livelihoods Assignment 1 Professor Swati Banerjee

Submitted by, Ahona Sen Roll No- 2012LE002.

Note on Development as Freedom Amartya Sen has advanced arguments to explain how he perceives development to be essentially a process of expanding real freedoms that people enjoy. He has established that looking at development as merely a growth of GNP or identifying it with industrialisation, is a narrow view of development since it does not take into account other essential facets of development which relate to freedoms of people that are dependent on social and economic arrangements, for example such as facilities of education and health, as well as political and civil rights, for example, the freedom to participate in public discussion and debate. In my opinion, what Amartya Sen does is focus on how the view of development as expansion of substantive freedoms (those liberties integral to leading a life with a comfortable standard of living) can do justice to any conception of a just and wholesome development which development practitioners and those involved in the discourse on development can resort to. Amartya Sen explores the concept of unfreedom, and says that development is the removal of major sources of unfreedom. He identifies unfreedoms as economic poverty which results in insufficient access to health, sanitation facilities shelter and nutrition. Conditions of life are rendered very difficult by denial of access to such necessities and economic poverty engenders this. Unfreedoms are also the result of lack of adequate facilities for health, education and other public facilities that are responsible for social care and maintaining order and peace in society. Political regimes that are authoritarian, that deny political liberties of engaging freely in public discussions and debate, are also sources of unfreedoms people experience. What Amartya Sen, in my opinion, is pointing to as unfreedoms, is the circumstances in society that deny people the opportunities to realise their full potentials. Viewing development as freedom and thus the removal of unfreedoms points out that individual freedoms to realise ones full potentials can propel an entire society forward in the path of development, that is result in social development. Thus development would mean creating circumstances to let individuals exercise their full capabilities to lead a sustainable and comfortable life. Amartya Sen has also dismissed the view of looking at markets as only a source of inequities. He recognises that capabilities of markets to propel forth economic
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growth and also generate economic freedoms through the process of freedom of economic exchange. He noted how markets can be used against just development by creating bonded labour and denial of access of product markets to small producers who suffer under traditional arrangements and restrictions. Amartya sen is of the view that looking at development as freedom requires arguments both for and against the market mechanism to be carefully considered and a narrow for or against market view to be dropped. Amartya Sen thus mainly points to how the different freedoms converge in creating a situation of complete freedom for an individual. He believes that connections exist between economic, social and political freedoms and can strengthen each other. For example, a man who has the political right of freedom of speech is in a better state to strengthen his economic position ( say through trade unionism). Again, a better economic position grants him and his family access to educational and health facilities that can improve the quality of their lives. In turn, literacy and good health helps the man and his family to further consolidate their economic position through gainful work. Thus we see various freedoms an individual can enjoy complement and supplement each other. Amartya Sen also expresses his belief that individuals are not passive recipients of the fruits of development but the approach of development as freedom, engages them actively in pursuing their freedoms and shaping their lives. He sees the enhancement of individual capabilities through provision of instrumental freedoms (political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparent guarantees and protective security) as the precursors of individual development and ultimately social development. Note on Development By Gustavo Esteva Esteva acknowledges that development has over the decades had several ambiguous connotations and has been amoeba like in the accommodation of various factors as components of development. The overarching and most prevailing sense of development that has held the world in its notorious grasp has however been the one introduced by Harry Truman, The President of the United States, on the 20th of January, 1949, implied as the movement away from underdevelopment. Development was meant to reflect the present economic and
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societal condition of the United States, which was a highly industrialised country at the time, a formidable and incessant productive machinery. In order to establish the superiority of the present condition of the United States it was convenient and beneficial for the latter, to caste the rest of the world, which did not approximate to the USs economic and social order, as in an undesirable and disadvantageous position. The US reality was considered to be the supreme reality and two-thirds of the worlds population were expected to conform to this reality in order to pull themselves out of their own wretched realities, and thus pull themselves out of underdevelopment. The sense of development that Truman championed constituted growth in GNP and industrialisation as ultimate ends towards which all societies must traverse. An appreciation of the uniqueness and culture diversity of the rest of the world was caste into a shadow and became far removed from this narrowly defined notion of development (which in fact benefitted only the US). This definition was thus a part of a sinister design to enlist the rest of the worlds population (almost two-third) in support of the market mechanism (which in the hands of such imperialist in fact robbed people of their economic choices), in striving towards higher GDP, in considering the Western social order as superior and thus helping the US consolidate its hegemony in the world order. A recognition of the inequities that this notion of development, that took the reference point of the West, resulted in, lead to development thinkers looking for fairer kinds of development such as endogenous development a concept coined by the UNESCO . However the idea of a development that accounted for the distinctive features and value systems of particular nations instead of blindly aping the industrial West, posed theoretical problems associated with the word development in itself. The pertinent question was, what in deed should be considered as a benchmark for development if a single cultural model was not to be imposed on the entire world? What the different nations would move towards in appreciation of their cultural exclusivity might not be a development at all. Who is to say it is? Thus the very concept of development, with its ambiguity, poses problems for attempts at more just formulations. Thus Esteva in his note has traced the evolution of the concept of development over the decades and shown how it is mired with complex and multiple meanings, with the dominant one championing hegemonic and colonising tendencies. He believes that people all over the world have now reacted to this unjust notion of
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development and retracted from this domineering world order. They have developed what is called the new commons, villages and neighbourhoods in which they live on their own terms. Here they do not experience any scarcity since they do not look upon the West to suggest to them what they are lacking in. They resort to traditional medicines an do no not panic in absence of hospital and nurses and allopathic drugs; they embed their learning in their traditional cultures and do not grieve the lack of access to the modern education system; they disassociate themselves from the economic logic of global markets that breed inequities, dissatisfaction and greed and instead engage in economic transactions that are confined to their own societies. Thus these men and women have tried to shield themselves from a skewed development. A deconstruction of the concept of development is thus the need of the hour, with present notions of development encroaching unfavourably on the lives of too many. Note on Introduction to Development Dictionary by Wolfgang Sachs Wolfgang Sachs has highlighted how the concept of development that emerged with Harry Truman labelling the Southern countries as underdeveloped, served to benefit the US, which was in post second World War period, the most industrialised nation. Such a conception of development served to enslave in a sense the populations of the Southern countries who viewed themselves with selfpity and strove to model their nations following the US example. This was exactly what helped the US maintain its supreme position in the worlds social and economic order for years. However, development as it had meant in Trumans time, that is industrialisation and technological advancement, has become out dated since, Sachs believe the very premises underlying it have been out dated by history. Sachs advances four arguments, three of which I have discussed below. First, the model of industrialisation and technological advancement the US follows, based on which it claims supremacy, has in it the seeds of self-destruction. Such a model of development is based on exploitation of resources and resultant ecological imbalance,( since the world is being steadily depleted of its natural resources) and thus headed towards a dead end. Thus, intrinsically this model of development holds threats in store for the future.
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Secondly, the US had advanced a notion of development, that naturally enlisted the decolonising countries in its support against the rising influence of the Soviet Union, the first communist country to industrialise itself, and thus attempted to maintain its (the USs) position as rank one in the world order. However, now that the confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union has come to a halt, the conception of development with the political motivation spelt out above, has lost its very essence. Thirdly, the social polarisation that has resulted with the widening of gaps within countries and between countries is contrary to what development was meant to bring about according to Truman. In his speech on the 20th of January, 1949, Truman had spoken of brining 'improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. However with burgeoning inequalities, development has evidently not achieved this. Thus according to Sachs, development is an illusion, the age of development has passed and what remains are the ruins of a concept that had once emerged as a political instrument to propel one society to the forefront of the world order. Development can only thus be conceived of as a cast of mind, a perception which models reality, a myth which comforts society, and a fantasy that unleashes passions.

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