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Amartya SenA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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.
By Amartya Sen