Development As Freedom #bookhighligt

Title : Development As Freedom

Author : Amartya Sen

Year : 1999

Publisher : Alfred A. Knopf, Inc

Distributed by : Random House, Inc., New York

Development as freddom, argued as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy, contrasts with narrower view, such as identifying development with the growth of gross national product, or with the rise in personal incomes, industrialization, technological advance, or social modernization. Even its matters, its also depend on other determinants, such as social and economic arrangements, as well as political and civil rights. Freedom is also the central to the process of development for two distinct reasons: 1) The evaluative reason; assessment of progress has to be done primarily in terms of whatever the freedoms that people have are enhanced. 2) The effectiveness reason: Achievement of development is thoroughly dependent on the free agency of people. 

A question from Maitreyee from Sanskrit text Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that asked “How far would wealth go to help them get what they want?”. Turn out, the issue is not the ability to love forever, but the capability to live really long (without being cut off in one’s prime) and to have a good life while alive (rather than a life of misery and unfreedom)-things that would be strongly valued and desired. The gap between an exclusive concentration on economic wealth and a broader focus on the lives we can lead is a major issue in conceptualizing development. 

Noted by Aristotle “wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else”. It is as important to recognize the crucial role of wealth in determining living conditions and the quality of life as it is to understand the qualified and contingent nature of this relationship. 

It should be clear from the preceding discussion that the view of freedom tha is being taken here involves both the processes that allow freedom of actions and decisions, and the actual opportunities that people have, given their personal and social circumstances.

Having greater freedom to do things one has reason to value is significant in itself for the person’s overall freedom and important in fostering the people’s opportunity to have valuable outcomes. Greater freedom enhances the ability of people to help themselves and also to influence the world, and these matters are central to the process of development. The concern here relates to what we may call the ‘agency aspect’ of the individual. (agency-acting on someone else’s behalf, principal).

The real conflict is actually between : 1) The basic value that people must be allowed to decide freely what traditions they wish or not wish to follow, and 2) The insistence that established traditions be followed, or alternatively, people must obey the decisions by religious or secular authorities who enforce traditions-real or imagined.

Bandung, 31 Juli 2018