In Development as Freedom Amartya Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in
overall opulence millions of people living in the Third World are still unfree. Even if they
are not technically slaves they are denied elementary freedoms and remain imprisoned in one
way or another by economic poverty social deprivation political tyranny or cultural
authoritarianism. The main purpose of development is to spread freedom and its 'thousand
charms' to the unfree citizens. Freedom Sen persuasively argues is at once the ultimate
goal of social and economic arrangements and the most efficient means of realizing general
welfare. Social institutions like markets political parties legislatures the judiciary and
the media contribute to development by enhancing individual freedom and are in turn sustained
by social values. Values institutions development and freedom are all closely interrelated
and Sen links them together in an elegant analytical framework. By asking 'What is the relation
between our collective economic wealth and our individual ability to live as we would like?'
and by incorporating individual freedom as a social commitment into his analysis Sen allows
economics once again as it did in the time of Adam Smith to address the social basis of
individual well-being and freedom.
