by Sen, Amartya
This point is quite separate from the instrumental role of democracy and basic political rights in providing security and protection to vulnerable groups. The exercise of these rights can indeed help in making states more responsive to the predicament of vulnerable people and, thus, contribute to preventing economic disasters such as famines. But going beyond that, the general enhancement of political and civil freedoms is central to the process of development itself. The relevant freedoms include the liberty of acting as citizens who matter and whose voices count, rather than living as well-fed, well-clothed, and well-entertained vassals. The instrumental role of democracy and human rights, important as it undoubtedly is, has to be distinguished from its constitutive importance.
Fourth, an approach to justice and development that concentrates on substantive freedoms inescapably focuses on the agency and judgment of individuals; they cannot be seen merely as patients to whom benefits will be dispensed by the process of development. Responsible adults must be in charge of their own well-being; it is for them to decide how to use their capabilities. But the capabilities that a person does actually have (and not merely theoretically enjoys) depend on the nature of social arrangements, which can be crucial for individual freedoms. And there the state and the society cannot escape responsibility.
It is, for example, a shared responsibility of the society that the system of labor bondage, where prevalent, should end, and that bonded laborers should be free to accept employment elsewhere. It is also a social responsibility that economic policies should be geared to providing widespread employment opportunities on which the economic and social viability of people may crucially depend. But it is, ultimately, an individual responsibility to decide what use to make of the opportunities of employment and what work options to choose. Similarly, the denial of opportunities of basic education to a child, or of essential health care to the ill, is a failure of social responsibility, but the exact utilization of the educational attainments or of health achievements cannot but be a matter for the person herself to determine.
Also, the empowerment of women, through employment opportunities, educational arrangements, property rights and so on, can give women more freedom to influence a variety of matters such as intrafamily division of health care, food and other commodities, and work arrangements as well as fertility rates, but the exercise of that enhanced freedom is ultimately a matter for the person herself. The fact that statistical predictions can often be plausibly made on the ways this freedom is likely to be used (for example, in predicting that female education and female employment opportunity would reduce fertility rates and the frequency of childbearing) does not negate the fact that it is the exercise of the women’s enhanced freedom that is being anticipated.
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES FREEDOM MAKE?
The perspective of freedom, on which this study has concentrated, must not be seen as being hostile to the large literature on social change that has enriched our understanding of the process for many centuries. While parts of the recent development literature have tended to concentrate very much on some limited indicators of development such as the growth of GNP per head, there is quite a long tradition against being imprisoned in that little box. There have indeed been many broader voices, including that of Aristotle, whose ideas are of course among the sources on which the present analysis draws (with his clear diagnosis in Nicomachean Ethics: “wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else”).11 It applies also to such pioneers of “modern” economics as William Petty, the author of Political Arithmetick (1691), who supplemented his innovation of national income accounting with motivating discussions on much broader concerns.12
Indeed, the belief that the enhancement of freedom is ultimately an important motivating factor for assessing economic and social change is not at all new. Adam Smith was explicitly concerned with crucial human freedoms.13 So was Karl Marx, in many of his writings, for example when he emphasized the importance of “replacing the domination of circumstances and chance over individuals by the domination of individuals over chance and circumstances.”14 The protection and enhancement of liberty supplemented John Stuart Mill’s utilitarian perspective very substantially, and so did his specific outrage at the denial of substantive freedoms to women.15 Friedrich Hayek has been emphatic in placing the achievement of economic progress within a very general formulation of liberties and freedoms, arguing: “Economic considerations are merely those by which we reconcile and adjust our different purposes, none of which, in the last resort, are economic (except those of the miser or the man for whom making money has become an end in itself).”16
Several development economists have also emphasized the importance of freedom of choice as a criterion of development. For example, Peter Bauer, who has quite a record of “dissent” in development economics (including an insightful book called Dissent on Development) has argued powerfully for the following characterization of development:
I regard the extension of the range of choice, that is, an increase in the range of effective alternatives open to the people, as the principal objective and criterion of economic development; and I judge a measure principally by its probable effects on the range of alternatives open to individuals.17
W. A. Lewis also stated, in his famous opus The Theory of Economic Growth, that the objective of development is increasing “the range of human choice.” However, after making this motivational point, Lewis decided, ultimately, to concentrate his analysis simply on “the growth of output per head,” on the ground that this “gives man greater control over his environment and thereby increases his freedom.”18 Certainly, other things given, an increase in output and income would expand the range of human choice—particularly over commodities purchased. But, as was discussed earlier, the range of substantive choice on valuable matters depends also on many other factors.
WHY THE DIFFERENCE?
It is, in this context, important to ask whether there is really any substantial difference between development analysis that focuses (as Lewis and many others choose to do) on “the growth of output per head” (such as GNP per capita), and a more foundational concentration on expanding human freedom. Since the two are related (as Lewis rightly points out), why are the two approaches to development—inescapably linked as they are—not substantively congruent? What difference can a focal concentration on freedom make?
The differences arise for two rather distinct reasons, related respectively to the “process aspect” and the “opportunity aspect” of freedom. First, since freedom is concerned with processes of decision making as well as opportunities to achieve valued outcomes, the domain of our interest cannot be confined only to the outcomes in the form of the promotion of high output or income, or the generation of high consumption (or other variables to which the concept of economic growth relates). Such processes as participation in political decisions and social choice cannot be seen as being—at best—among the means to development (through, say, their contribution to economic growth), but have to be understood as constitutive parts of the ends of development in themselves.
The second reason for the difference between “development as freedom” and the more conventional perspectives on development relates to contrasts within the opportunity aspect itself, rather than being related to the process aspect. In pursuing the view of development as freedom, we have to examine—in addition to the freedoms involved in political, social and economic processes—the extent to which people have the opportunity to achieve outcomes that they value and have reason to value. The levels of real income that people enjoy are important in giving them corresponding opportunities to purchase goods and services and to enjoy living standards that go with those purchases. But as some of the empirical investigations presented earlier in this book showed, income levels may often be inadequate guides to such important matters as the freedom to live long, or the ability to escape avoidable morbidity, or the opportunity to have worthwhile e
mployment, or to live in peaceful and crime-free communities. These non-income variables point to opportunities that a person has excellent reasons to value and that are not strictly linked with economic prosperity.
Thus, both the process aspect and the opportunity aspect of freedom require us to go well beyond the traditional view of development in terms of “the growth of output per head.” There is also the fundamental difference in perspective in valuing freedom only for the use that is to be made of that freedom, and valuing it over and above that. Hayek may have overstated his case (as he often did) when he insisted that “the importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that possibility.”19 But he was, I would argue, entirely right in distinguishing between (1) the derivative importance of freedom (dependent only on its actual use) and (2) the intrinsic importance of freedom (in making us free to choose something we may or may not actually choose).
Indeed, sometimes a person may have a very strong reason to have an option precisely for the purpose of rejecting it. For example, when Mahatma Gandhi fasted to make a political point against the Raj, he was not merely starving, he was rejecting the option of eating (for that is what fasting is). To be able to fast, Mohandas Gandhi had to have the option of eating (precisely to be able to reject it); a famine victim could not have made a similar political point.20
While I do not want to go down the purist route that Hayek chooses (in dissociating freedom from actual use altogether), I would emphasize that freedom has many aspects. The process aspect of freedom would have to be considered in addition to the opportunity aspect, and the opportunity aspect itself has to be viewed in terms of intrinsic as well as derivative importance. Furthermore, freedom to participate in public discussion and social interaction can also have a constructive role in the formation of values and ethics. Focusing on freedom does indeed make a difference.
HUMAN CAPITAL AND HUMAN CAPABILITY
I must also briefly discuss another relation which invites a comment, to wit, the relation between the literature on “human capital” and the focus in this work on “human capability” as an expression of freedom. In contemporary economic analysis the emphasis has, to a considerable extent, shifted from seeing capital accumulation in primarily physical terms to viewing it as a process in which the productive quality of human beings is integrally involved. For example, through education, learning, and skill formation, people can become much more productive over time, and this contributes greatly to the process of economic expansion.21 In recent studies of economic growth (often influenced by empirical readings of the experiences of Japan and the rest of East Asia as well as Europe and North America), there is a much greater emphasis on “human capital” than used to be the case not long ago.
How does this shift relate to the view of development—development as freedom—presented in this book? More particularly, what, we may ask, is the connection between “human capital” orientation and the emphasis on “human capability” with which this study has been much concerned? Both seem to place humanity at the center of attention, but do they have differences as well as some congruence? At the risk of some oversimplification, it can be said that the literature on human capital tends to concentrate on the agency of human beings in augmenting production possibilities. The perspective of human capability focuses, on the other hand, on the ability—the substantive freedom—of people to lead the lives they have reason to value and to enhance the real choices they have. The two perspectives cannot but be related, since both are concerned with the role of human beings, and in particular with the actual abilities that they achieve and acquire. But the yardstick of assessment concentrates on different achievements.
Given her personal characteristics, social background, economic circumstances and so on, a person has the ability to do (or be) certain things that she has reason to value. The reason for valuation can be direct (the functioning involved may directly enrich her life, such as being well-nourished or being healthy), or indirect (the functioning involved may contribute to further production, or command a price in the market). The human capital perspective can—in principle—be defined very broadly to cover both types of valuation, but it is typically defined—by convention—primarily in terms of indirect value: human qualities that can be employed as “capital” in production (in the way physical capital is). In this sense, the narrower view of the human capital approach fits into the more inclusive perspective of human capability, which can cover both direct and indirect consequences of human abilities.
Consider an example. If education makes a person more efficient in commodity production, then this is clearly an enhancement of human capital. This can add to the value of production in the economy and also to the income of the person who has been educated. But even with the same level of income, a person may benefit from education—in reading, communicating, arguing, in being able to choose in a more informed way, in being taken more seriously by others and so on. The benefits of education, thus, exceed its role as human capital in commodity production. The broader human-capability perspective would note—and value—these additional roles as well. The two perspectives are, thus, closely related but distinct.
The significant transformation that has occurred in recent years in giving greater recognition to the role of “human capital” is helpful for understanding the relevance of the capability perspective. If a person can become more productive in making commodities through better education, better health and so on, it is not unnatural to expect that she can, through these means, also directly achieve more—and have the freedom to achieve more—in leading her life.
The capability perspective involves, to some extent, a return to an integrated approach to economic and social development championed particularly by Adam Smith (both in the Wealth of Nations and in The Theory of Moral Sentiments). In analyzing the determination of production possibilities, Smith emphasized the role of education as well as division of labor, learning by doing and skill formation. But the development of human capability in leading a worthwhile life (as well as in being more productive) is quite central to Smith’s analysis of “the wealth of nations.”
Indeed, Adam Smith’s belief in the power of education and learning was peculiarly strong. Regarding the debate that continues today on the respective roles of “nature” and “nurture,” Smith was an uncompromising—and even a dogmatic—“nurturist.” Indeed, this fitted in well with his massive confidence in the unprovability of human capabilities:
The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education. When they came into the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence, they were, perhaps, very much alike, and neither their parents nor play-fellows could perceive any remarkable difference.22
It is not my purpose here to examine whether Smith’s emphatically nurturist views are right, but it is useful to see how closely he links productive abilities and lifestyles to education and training and presumes the improvability of each.23 That connection is quite central to the reach of the capability perspective.24
There is, in fact, a crucial valuational difference between the human-capital focus and the concentration on human capabilities—a difference that relates to some extent to the distinction between means and ends. The acknowledgment of the role of human qualities in promoting and sustaining economic growth—momentous as it is—tells us nothing about why economic growth is sought in the first place. If, instead, the focus is, ultimately, on the expansion of human freedom to live the kind of lives that people have reason to value, then
the role of economic growth in expanding these opportunities has to be integrated into that more foundational understanding of the process of development as the expansion of human capability to lead more worthwhile and more free lives.25
The distinction has a significant practical bearing on public policy. While economic prosperity helps people to have wider options and to lead more fulfilling lives, so do more education, better health care, finer medical attention, and other factors that causally influence the effective freedoms that people actually enjoy. These “social developments” must directly count as “developmental,” since they help us to lead longer, freer and more fruitful lives, in addition to the role they have in promoting productivity or economic growth or individual incomes.26 The use of the concept of “human capital,” which concentrates only on one part of the picture (an important part, related to broadening the account of “productive resources”), is certainly an enriching move. But it does need supplementation. This is because human beings are not merely means of production, but also the end of the exercise.