SEN ON FREEDOM AND GENDER JUSTICE

Abstract

This comment on the special double issue of Feminist Economics on Amartya Sen's work discusses a number of themes and evaluates certain criticisms and claims in the volume. Sen's work involves a complex differentiation of distinct aspects of freedom. This differentiation is relevant to a number of criticisms. It is particularly helpful in evaluating various claims about Sen's focus on and the adequacy of his account of freedom. The article also considers claims about Sen's neglect of issues relating to interdependence and agency. To the degree that it is argued that some of these claims and criticisms can be addressed within Sen's conceptual framework, this article constitutes a qualified defense of his work. However, it does not claim that Sen's framework addresses all the criticisms that are leveled at it in the volume. Possible themes for future research are also briefly discussed.     

Degrees of Connection: A Critique of Rawls’s Theory of Mutual Disinterest

John Rawls's solution to the problem of justice between generations is premised on the idea that “a generation cares for its immediate descendants, as fathers say care for their sons” (John Rawls 1971: 288, emphasis added). This paper brings mothers into the Rawlsian social contract. I argue that, when children have more than one parent, there is a contradiction between the assumption of concern for descendants, which underpins Rawls's account of justice between generations, and the mutual disinterest assumption, which characterizes parties negotiating in the “original position.” Concern for descendants creates connections within generations as well as across generations. The critique is internal and nonradical, but its implications are subversive. It demonstrates that an “add women and stir” liberal feminist reworking of Rawls's theory cannot be successful; bringing sexual reproduction out of the realm of nature and into the social contract necessitates a radical reconstruction of Rawls's theory.     

CAPABILITIES AS FUNDAMENTAL ENTITLEMENTS: SEN AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Amartya Sen has made a major contribution to the theory of social justice, and of gender justice, by arguing that capabilities are the relevant space of comparison when justice-related issues are considered. This article supports Sen's idea, arguing that capabilities supply guidance superior to that of utility and resources (the view's familiar opponents), but also to that of the social contract tradition, and at least some accounts of human rights. But I argue that capabilities can help us to construct a normative conception of social justice, with critical potential for gender issues, only if we specify a definite set of capabilities as the most important ones to protect. Sen's "perspective of freedom" is too vague. Some freedoms limit others; some freedoms are important, some trivial, some good, and some positively bad. Before the approach can offer a valuable normative gender perspective, we must make commitments about substance.     

Adding links,adding persons,and adding structures: Using Sen's frameworks

Abstract

This essay is a comment on “Sen on Freedom and Gender Justice,” by Mozaffar Qizilbash, which appeared in Feminist Economics Volume 11, Number 3, November 2005.

Building on the 2003 double special issue of Feminist Economics entitled “Amartya Sen's Work and Ideas,” this paper responds to the review essay by Mozaffar Qizilbash. It identifies and illustrates various possible evaluations of a theoretical system, including that it has acknowledged strengths, unrecognized strengths, remediable gaps or failings, or structural faults. The paper then looks at Sen's system as a theoretical basis for “human development”– in particular in relation to personhood, emotions, and psychological interdependence – and argues that it points in directions required for economic and social analysis, including towards theories of care, but is not itself a sufficient treatment. The paper suggests deepening Sen's system by connecting to other important languages of analysis concerning the structuring of attitudes, emotions, felt well-being, public reasoning, and politics.     

Sen after Putnam

Modern classical economic theory, originally austere and minimalist (as in Sraffa and Neumann), has entered a second, more enriched phase. Inspired by Adam Smith, Amartya Sen has drawn out the moral implications of formal classical models. But Sen remains open to neoclassical attack on the grounds that science must be value free. In his book The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays , Hilary Putnam rebuts the view that "fact is fact and value is value and never the twain shall meet". This paper explores consequences of this argument for classical theory. It explains the nature and significance of the entanglement of facts, analysis and values; and the impact of this entanglement on the concept of rationality, on capability theory, on the relationship between human needs and Sraffa basics, on Pasinetti's transformational growth, and on Sen's analysis of the disabled and most wretched. Supporting Sen's approach to human development, it opens the possibility of an enriched classical analysis, which can absorb Martha Nussbaum's analysis of tragedy using a logically and morally coherent political economy.     

Corporate Control and the Decapitalization of Subsidiary Corporations: The Looting of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice is examined from the perspective of experimental methods in economics and complex adaptive systems simulations. This paper first discusses the justice principle selection process in Rawls's representation of it as a hypothetical experiment. This hypothetical experiment fails to satisfy reasonable experimental controls, particularly as reflects the conception of the individual it employs. The second section of the paper discusses the differences between Rawls's two conceptions of rational persons associated with his distinction between thin and full theories of the good. The third section uses his fuller conception of rational persons, life plans, and psychological laws in the third part of the book to offer an alternative view of the selection process understood as a complex adaptive system. The fourth section turns to a topic raised by this complex system approach, the status of normative reasoning in political-economic systems. The fifth section summarizes.     

The Economic Contributions of Amartya Sen

This paper examines the major economic contributions of Amartya Sen. Sen's contributions fall into three main areas: a philosophical critique of traditional economic assumptions, an attempt to build a more realistic economic science based on the notion of entitlements and human capabilities, and a long series of practical contributions to welfare economics that follow from the capabilities approach - how to measure poverty and inequality better, how to understand famine and hunger, the importance of gender in economic development, and the differences between economic development and economic growth. The paper concludes with a brief assessment of the significance of Sen's work.     

Capabilities and Personal Identity: Using Sen to explain personal identity in Folbre's 'structures of constraint' analysis

Folbre's 'structures of constraint' analysis treats women as socially embedded in 'multiple, often contradictory positions, because they belong to multiple groups'. This paper addresses the problem of women's multiple collective identities by arguing that Sen's capability framework offers a means of explaining how women can maintain coherent personal identities. Using Sen's real opportunities sense of capabilities, the paper argues that women can acquire personal identities apart from their multiple collective identities if they acquire the specific capability of being able, freely and successfully, to negotiate their multiple group involvements. Folbre's list of policies for a more egalitarian family is reconsidered from this perspective.     

Main Currents of Marxism

We present a three-fold test for sustainability on policies addressing environmental and natural resource management. The first — ecological holism — requires that management of natural systems not only ensure the long term viability of ecosystem functions and enhanced diversity of wildlife within that ecosystem, but also facilitate the provision of renewable energy and material resources. The second — community centeredness — is an assessment of the improvement (or reduction) in economic wellbeing of local populations measured by employment and income and in quality of life for the larger community resulting from that policy. The third — institutional legitimacy — evaluates the level of justice that a policy and its outcome(s) bring to the entire community (here, just policies will satisfy Rawls's "veil of ignorance" test). Three policies for National Forest management on Washington's Olympic Peninsula are examined and results are compared: the Northwest Forest Plan, the Wild Olympics Wilderness and Scenic Rivers Act of 2012 (Wild Olympics), and The Third Way (an alternative forest management option). Each policy satisfies the first test of ecological holism, but not in equal measures. Success in this regard can be differentially ranked because the relative impacts are not neutral. Both the Northwest Forest Plan and Wild Olympics fail the test of community centeredness. In contrast, The Third Way promotes community centeredness and ecological holism. We assert that, as a result, it would satisfy John Rawls's test for justice, and it is institutionally legitimate.     

On the Relevance of John Rawls's Theory of Justice to Welfare Economics

Mainstream microeconomic theory makes some use of John Rawls's Theory of Justicein discussing welfare economics and social welfare functionals. While various elements of his approach are usually mentioned, his basic point is generally taken to be his difference principle (maximizing the welfare of the worst off individual) applied as a decision principle for evaluating the equity of resource allocation.

To take the difference principle as the essence of Rawls's work is an error. The present paper reviews the basic argument of the Theory of Justice

compares it with the use that economists make of it, and concludes that in a number of quite specific ways Rawls's ideas are misrepresented and misused by mainstream microeconomists.     

罗尔斯公平观视角下的美国城市更新策略研究——以亚特兰大环线再开发为例

近年来,美国一些以城市更新为导向的大型景观项目因其巨大的规模和尺度、多元的利益相关方以及所产生的积极社会效应而受到广泛关注,如纽约高线公园、亚特兰大环线。这些景观项目除关注空间设计品质外,相较传统更新实践更加重视利益分配、社会参与以及景观服务可达性等社会公平议题。基于罗尔斯公平理论的视角,系统分析了以亚特兰大环线项目为代表的美国城市更新策略,重点探讨了程序正义、重叠共识、结果正义的实现方法和形式,以期对中国当下的城市更新提供参考与借鉴。     

Lange's 1938 model: dynamics and the “optimum propensity to consume”

Abstract

Oskar Lange's 1938 article “The Rate of Interest and the Optimum Propensity to Consume” is usually associated with the original IS-LM approach of the late 1930s. However, Lange's article was not only an attempt to illuminate Keynes's main innovations but the first part of a wide project that included the development of a theory of economic evolution. This paper aims at showing that Lange's article can help in illuminating critical aspects of this project: in particular, Lange's idea that a synthesis between Kaldor's and Kalecki's theories and that of Schumpeter, might have been possible and that it represented (in intentions) a “modern” and consistent reconstruction of the Marxist theory of the business cycle. Section 2 clarifies Lange's early reflection on dynamics. Section 3 centres on Lange's 1938 static model and indicates the effects of a change of saving on investment. Section 4 suggests a dynamic reconstruction from which are addressed important arguments raised by Lange in a series of papers written between 1934 and 1942.     

Fragments of Development: Nation,Gender, and the Space of Modernity

Adam Smith argued that capitalism was best achieved when individuals temper their economic self-interests with ethically grounded motivations. Unfortunately, Smith stopped short of articulating precisely how individuals might manage these seemingly competing interests in a way that is practical for actors in modern day organizations. We believe that a set of effective principles of justice can be found in the writings of political philosopher John Rawls. We argue that due to the empirical realities of entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial context is aligned with Rawls' original position. We consider how Rawls' principles might inform founders of new organizations with regard to their interaction with organizational stakeholders.     

Enrico Barone's ‘Ministry of Production’: Content and Context

Abstract

Enrico Barone's famous article on economic planning, ‘Il Ministro della Produzione nello Stato Collettivista’ (‘The Ministry of Production in the Collectivist State’), which showed the theoretical possibility of an economically efficient collectivist planned economy, was published in Giornale degli Economisti in 1908. Barone's article has been widely cited, particularly in the comparative economic systems literature, but it has not been very widely read or analysed in recent years, and there is not much literature that places Barone's ‘Ministry’ model in the context of his other works or in its historical, social, or ideological context. The aims of this article are: (a) to analyse and clarify Barone's model in depth; (b) to place it in the context of Barone's other writings and the literature on the subject; and (c) to examine the apparent contradiction between Barone's hostility to socialism and his attempt to formulate the pure theory of the collectivist economy.     

DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM v - v AND AS WHAT ELSE?

To what extent can Amartya Sen's ideas on freedom, especially his conceptualization of development as freedom, enrich feminist economics? Sen's notion of freedom (as the capability to achieve valued ends) has many attractions and provides important opportunities to analyze gender inequalities. At the same time, Sen's recent emphasis on freedom as the dominant value in judging individual well-being and societal development also contains risks, not least for feminist analysis. We characterize the risks as an underelaboration and overextension of the concept of freedom. Drawing on Sen's earlier work and various feminist theorists, we suggest instead a more emphatically pluralist characterization of capability, well-being, and value, highlighting the distinct and substantive aspects of freedom, as well as of values besides freedom, in the lives of women and men. We illustrate this with reference to women's economic role as caregivers.     

GLOBALIZATION AND WOMEN'S PAID WORK: EXPANDING FREEDOM?

In Development as Freedom , Amartya Sen takes expanding freedom to be the primary end and the principal means of development. I discuss his emphasis on women's agency as central to development theory and practice and the strategies he advocates for enhancing it. Recent work in feminist economics and postcolonial studies tests Sen's complex account of freedom. Further levels of complexity need to be added when we examine how global forces of power interact with local systems of oppression in ways that often limit women's freedom. This argument rests on an analysis of how globalization affects a domain of freedom that is a central concern for Sen, that of increasing women's freedom to work outside the home as a way of strengthening their agency. Attending to elements missing in Sen's account will enhance freedom in women's lives.     

Thinking Things Through: The Value and Limitations of James Buchanan's Public Choice Theory

Abstract

James Buchanan, one of the founders of Public Choice theory, applies the conceptual apparatus of economics to the public domain. This article investigates which assumptions are crucial to Buchanan's project, concentrating on methodological individualism and the Homo Economicus model. It shows that Buchanan from time to time moves away from these economic concepts, though only in minor ways. The article also focuses on Buchanan's normative emphasis on the role of institutions in coordinating self-interested individual actions in mutually beneficial ways. Criticizing Buchanan's analysis, the article argues that a broader view of the individual and of the role of institutions is necessary in a theory of constitutional choice.     

Perfectionism,Paternalism and Liberalism in Sen and Nussbaum's Capability Approach

The aim of the paper is to analyse the theoretical foundations of human development policies as found in Sen's and Nussbaum's capability approach to development, and to examine to what extent undertaking policies according to the capability approach respects people's freedom to pursue their own conception of the good. The paper argues that policies undertaken according to the capability approach have to be guided by a perfectionist conception of the good; that is, they cannot avoid promoting one certain conception of the human good. Such a perfectionist conception of the human good, and the policies ensuing from it, has often been qualified as paternalist, depriving the human being of choosing her own conception of the good. The paper examines to what extent those fears of paternalism that seem to underlie policies guided by a perfectionist account of the good are legitimate, and to what extent the capability approach can escape those charges of paternalism and respect each person's freedom to pursue the human good as she conceives it.     

Sen and Commons on Markets and Freedom

Amartya Sen's enlarged conception of freedom has augmented the scope of economic analysis but it also has had the surprising effect of being more supportive of the free market than conventional welfare economics. It is argued here that a comparison of Sen's position with that of the American institutionalist, J R Commons, highlights some problems with Sen's approach and points to possible ways in which they might be addressed.