Development As Freedom

When Sen began his career, intellectual orthodoxy concentrated on the flaws of market mechanics to the point of advocating any alternative. However, at the time if his writing this book, the situation is reversed, and orthodoxy scoffs at any limitations on the free market. He says that neither extreme is healthy. Free markets are, however, generally good, both as a matter of principle and considering their practical results. The freedom to engage in transactions is so common in Western countries that people often don’t see it as a freedom, but it is an important freedom. Enslavement and other bonded labor still exist (albeit illegally), and people suffer from that unfreedom. Communism, while often increasing lifespans, similarly deprives people of that freedom to control their economic lives. Child labor and restrictions on women working outside the home pose similar issues of unfreedom. A capabilities-approach must advocate for people’s substantive freedom to control how they sell their work or the fruits of their labor.

Beyond the issue of freedom, economists correctly state that a perfectly functioning free market ought to give the best economic results. The Arrow-Debreu theorem shows that this hypothetical market should achieve the “Pareto optimality,” in which no one’s