Zhang

Excerpt:

“… like the life of rich people will be your life. But there is no hope of immortality by wealth….
What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal?”

…wanting more income or wealth. This is not because income and wealth are desirable for their own sake, but because, typically, they are admirable general-purpose means for having more freedom to lead the kind of lives we have reason to value.

The ends and means of development require examination and scrutiny fro a fuller understanding of the development process…

p16

But political liberty and civil freedoms are directly important on their own, and do not have to be justified indirectly in terms of their efforts on the economy.

pg 17

Unfreedom can arise either through inadequate processes or through inadequate opportunities that some people have for achieving what they minimally would like to achieve.

p 20

There are good reasons for seeing poverty as a deprivation of basic capabilities, rather than merely as low income. Deprivation of elementary capabilities can be reflected

p 24

…I have been concentrating on a very elementary freedom: the ability to survive rather than succumb to premature mortality.

… the freedom-centered perspective has a generic similarity to the common concern with “quality of life,” which too concentrates on the way human life goes (perhaps even the choices on has) and not just on the resources or income that a person commands.The focusing on the quality of life and on substantive freedoms, rather than just on income or wealth, may look like something of a departure from the established traditions of economics, and in a sense it is (especially if comparisons are made with some of the more austere income-centered analysis that can be found in contemporary economics.)

p25-26

The relation of the market mechanism to freedom and thus to economic development raises questions of at least two quite distinct types, which need to be clearly distinguished. First, a denial of opportunities of transaction, through arbitrary controls, can be a source of unfreedom in itself….second, …markets typically work to expand income and wealth and economic opportunities that people have.

p 27

The worst violations of the norm against child labor come typically from the virtual slavery of children in disadvantaged families and from their being forced into exploitative employment (as opposed to being free and possibly going to school).

p30

Valuations are, of course, involved in all such approaches (including utilitarianism, libertarianism, and other approaches…), even though they are often made implicitly. Those who prefer a mechanical index, without the need to be explicit about what values are being used and why, have a tendency to grumble that the freedom-based approach requires that valuations be explicitly made.

p 31

The more serious issue, rather, concerns the source of authority and legitimacy.

p31-32

There is an inescapable valuational problem involved in deciding what to choose if and when it turns out that some parts of tradition cannot be maintained along with economic or social changes that may be needed for other reasons. it is a choice that the people involved have to face and assess. … lies in the basic importance of human freedom. … one that is accepted there are strong implications on what can or cannot be done in the name of tradition.

p32

…in the freedom-oriented perspective the liberty of all to participate in deciding what traditions to observe cannot be ruled out by the national or local “guardians”… . The pointer to any real conflict between the preservation of tradition and the advantages of modernity calls for a participatory resolution, not for a unilateral rejection of modernity in favor of tradition by political rulers, or religious authorities, or anthropological admirers of the legacy of the past.

p36

…expansion of freedom is viewed as both (I) the primary end and (2) the principal means of development. They can be called respectively the “constitutive role” and the “instrumental role” of freedom in development.

p78