Manini Sheker, a highly credentialized young person- possibly of ancestral Hindu heritage- has an essay in Aeon- an often, hopefully unconsciously, Racist mag- which asks- 'Is there a role for religion in international development?'
The answer has long been known that- as far as sensible, petit bourgeois, oikeiosis and knowledge based Religions, as opposed to eschatological cults, are concerned- Religion is positively correlated to Growth and Development outcomes, if not at the level of the country then, at least, with respect to endogamous social units which may become geographically dispersed. The fact is, if the mass of people- or their hereditary leaders- don't want Development, then there won't be Development. There will be enclaves of 'ethnic' or 'confessional' capitalism till an Idi Amin rises up to chase away wealth creators.
All the Universal Religions we are now familiar with- at least in their popular form- encode the norms of a particular, universalizable, mode of production and thus enable Tardean mimetics to drive 'catch up' Developmental growth. Some particular, more puritanical, sects, which insist on 'costly signals', create 'high in-group' trust-based risk pooling and networking effects and thus support 'separating equilibria' especially favorable to capital formation and global arbitrage. However, this can burgeon independently of any continuing interest in Religion.
Where Tardean mimetics face few barriers to propagation, the burgeoning of particular 'styles' of Religion may correlate with Development but correlation is not causation. We are likely to see that a whole bunch of 'Service industries', each of which can become the basis of an exchange of 'marking services', and thus, independent of their own utility, turn 'bridging' into 'bonding' ties - Jurisprudence, Paideia, Music, Fine Arts- all experience a similar type of efflorescence purely on the basis of 'Income elasticity of demand'.
Anyway, this sort of stuff was analyzed to death over a hundred years ago. Sheker is doing, or has completed, a PhD in Social Anthropology and thus will know all about 'the Protestant work ethic', or ethic of thrift and enterprise, and its various non-European cognates or correlatives.
There has been considerable research into the link between Religion and Economics but this is a branch of inquiry which attracts low IQ people. The fact is research in Religion must make people more Religious- otherwise it is useless, just as research in Econ must make people or things more productive- otherwise it is useless. To look at Religion from the Economic p.o.v or vice versa may, in fact, increase Faith and thus Trust and thus reduce Uncertainty and, by itself, lead to rapid Growth or relatively frictionless development. But this only happens if the discourse is univalent- in other words, Religious and Economic values are commensurable. Hinduism, obviously, does this by specifying that 'Artha'- meaning- is economic and extends to soteriology by means of ontologically dysphoric objects and projects. Christianity, less obviously, does this by dismissing 'Akreibia' in favor of Economia such that Faith remains a mystery. But that isn't yet taught in Schools and Colleges. I found it out for myself Googling- 'fuck are nice Xtian peeps trying to fuck up Development for? What have they got against iggnirint darkies like me?' The answer is, Christianity aint anti-Development. It celebrates the 'oikonomia mysterion' of the various invisible hands of the Katechon- Hindus would say Vishnu- which keeps the eschaton- the opening of Shiva's third eye- at bay.
There is a way of using the terminology of Religion to elucidate the stupid jargon of the Economist. Furthermore, all Religions pretty much cash out as each other coz they all really do want ordinary folks to be happy and secure and to make and receive really cool stuff. The word 'ecumenical' is itself related to oikos and oikonomia and the notion that, Vasudhaiva kutumbhakam, all under Heaven is Family. Tell the Identitarians and Grievance Studies monkeys to fuck off. Like the 3 idiots say - All izz Well. Who trouble their own house- inherit the wind. That's what happens when Religion tries to get in bed with atheistic creeds- Marxist or Fascist or Racist or whatever. But, as this blog post will point out, the same thing happens when it tries to jump Amartya Sen's bones and discovers that that buddhijivi's oeuvre is entirely boneless.
Manini, who is probably are real nice person, makes this mistake in her Aeon Essay.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom (1999) begins with a parable from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, one of the oldest scriptures of Hinduism.
The Hindus elaborated a hermeneutic called 'Mimamsa' for the proper interpretation of their sacred texts and canonical commentaries. Sen chose to remain ignorant of Mimamsa- one of whose first rules is that the meaning (vidhi) of a passage can never be merely that which is already known to all. It must be something not generally known and which is worth communicating because it is novel (apurva).
We will shortly see how ignorance of Mimamsa causes Sen to make an utterly foolish and ludicrous claim regarding the Brihadaranyaka.
Maitreyi asks her husband Yajnavalkya whether she would achieve immortality if she had all the riches in the world. Yajnavalkya replies that the accretion of wealth would give her ‘the life of rich people’, but no hope for immortality.
This is because rich people die just the same as poor people. Everybody knows this. Sen, by his own account, didn't. He may have thought Death was discovered by Adam Smith and then, thanks to his own indefatigable researches in the Sanskrit language, suddenly he found proof that some select ancient Indians were aware that dudes die. Even rich dudes. How amazing! There is so much we in the West can learn from the ancient Sages of the Orient. Amartya Sen is a bridge between our own technological age and the wisdom of little brown people who lived harmoniously with nature, hanging by their tails from tree branches while eating bananas. It is this primordial gnoseology which Sen's 'Capabilities approach' can make us capable of appreciating.
On the other hand, it must be admitted, every Religion ever has taught that both rich and poor people can do something which gains them- not eternal youth or eternal life in the same decaying body- but a better future for their immortal soul. Since rich people have more resources and more leisure to do what soteriology requires, it follows that, ceteris paribus, having more wealth is better than having less wealth.
It should be remembered that Yajnavalkya is dividing his property between his two wives before heading off for the forest to gain Liberation from the cycle of rebirth through ascesis. His two wives correspond to Mary and Martha in the Bible. Conventionally, Mary is considered to have chosen the better path- i.e. the path of contemplation. But, Meister Eckhart says, Mary has taken the first step to becoming Martha. Once you have secured yourself from the fear of death you can live large and enable more and more other people to do so.
In response, Maitreyi wonders: ‘What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal?’
Live large. Be happy. Hire a guy to perform the karma kanda rituals which assure you a better reincarnation. Sure, if you want 'Moksha', then pay dakshina, or perform personal service, to a Guru and get instructed in 'Madhu Vidhya'. That's what Sheker's ancestors and my ancestors did. If we had money, a lot of it went to building dharamshalas and anathalays and so forth. But this was also true of every other big religion.
Maitreyi’s question has often been repeated in Indian philosophy
No it hasn't. Sen simply made that shit up. It was obvious that Maitreyi represents the Atman and Katayani represents the Jeeva. But both can gain Liberation of a univocal type by methods adapted to their particular traits. Indian philosophy deals with categories and modalities and their epistemological and ontological implications. This affected and was affected by developments in other disciplines- e.g. Semantics, Aesthetics, Jurisprudence etc. It had nothing to do with Sen's witless shite.
to show the predicament of the human condition and the limits of the material world.
Sen may have been too stupid to understand that people die. He may have thought that Hindus venerate the Upanishads because it contains valuable information- e.g. rich dudes don't live forever. But, equally, Sen may simply have been pretending to be stupid so as not to get called on writing stupid shite. Suppose Ken Arrow had said to him- 'Dude, even Indians must have known that human beings don't live forever.' Sen may well have replied, 'In India, people live forever on the same nice farm where my dog, Fido, went to live while I was away in College. Mum herself assured me of this. Then she herself went to live on that nice farm. I too will join her after getting a couple of Nobels and a few dozen more Honorary Doctorates.' What could Arrow's comeback have been? Even if he was prepared to risk being thought Racist, it would have been cruel to have disabused a colleague of the efficacy of the Spilrajn extension theorem in extending human life indefinitely. Anyway, agents in an Arrow-Debreu model are immortal or- at least- have access to perfect futures markets.
Sen admits that he is skeptical of Maitreyi’s otherworldly concerns,
in which case Religion is useless. There is no nice farm where you will be re-united with Mummy and Daddy and Fido and that first wife of yours who didn't run away with the post-man, as gossip avers, but who got runover by a bus and went to a nice farm where no buses are.
but says that her remark nevertheless illuminates the oft-tenuous relationship between material gain and having a life of value.
This is not true. Material gain involves 'disutility' only if you have to sacrifice leisure to achieve it. If Hubby is leaving you a big estate- this is 'transferable utility'- no 'disutility' arises. You can have anything you value- while you are alive. If you want to do something for your immortal soul, you can do so by spending some of your wealth on Religion.
Sen simply forgot about 'disutility'. At the margin, this is what is equated to the wage or other reward. That's why Sen was and is a shite economist.
Wealth is useful only if it gives a person freedom to pursue a life she values.
No. Wealth is useful only if it represents 'transferable utility'- e.g. money. If you can't transfer your Wealth, it is useless for any purpose of freedom. True, you may remain the prisoner of a gilded cage but you can't trade your gold cups and plates for a chance to go to Disneyland or attend the sort of high priced Colleges Manini attended.
Conversely, there are many people who are not living the life they value because what they value even more is that their family have enough wealth to help some sibling or child or elderly parent who needs expensive medical treatment. Some have yet broader concerns. They may drudge away so that their wealth can support Scientific research or Aesthetic achievement or the spread of a Religion or Ideology.
Thus, social and economic policy should
promote freedom? Encourage people to be individualistic and self-centered so that they pursue only what they themselves value? Surely, this is what is logically entailed by Sen's credo?
not focus only on increasing incomes or economic growth,
it does not do so in a country which is free. Why? Citizens get to say what Social and Economic policies should be followed. Why is Sen pretending otherwise? It is only in a Dictatorship that cadres get shot if they fail to overfulfil the production quota. In a Democracy, a leader- like FDR- can get reelected even if incomes are stagnant or growth turns negative. What matters is whether voters like the policies of the Government.
but should be concerned equally with creating the conditions for people to enjoy varied freedoms and lead fulfilling lives.
Sen did not create the conditions for his students to enjoy varied freedoms and to live fulfilling lives. He stuffed their heads with worthless shite. Why pretend any Government- as opposed to a small bunch of libtards- listens to his shite? Growth and Development occurs when we imitate what smart peeps are doing. Sen is not smart.
Freedom, in other words, must be the final destination of any endeavour aimed at making life better.
Does Manini think 'Operation Enduring Freedom' was a success? Does she imagine that Indians today think they would have been worse off if their country had developed along Chinese lines rather than remaining a place where savants prattle Sen-tentious shite while woke 'andolanjivis' run amok?
Working at the crossroads between philosophy and economics, Sen’s ideas have
shat on both. He doesn't know economics and he doesn't know philosophy. He just strings non-sequiturs together and gets away with it because he is from the veritable asshole of the Turd World.
been influential, albeit not always easy to implement.
They have helped some worthless bureaucrats and pedants to get paid to waste each others time.
In the 1990s, he helped to create the United Nations’ Human Development Index, now the standard tool for welfare comparison between nations that moves away from purely economic measures such as gross national product (GNP).
The thing isn't exactly rocket-science. Anyway, it proved useless. A country could appear to be rising when actually it was going to plunge into a Venezuela type pit.
Despite Sen’s contributions, economic growth remains the goal of most governments today, with more than a third of governments in the developing world pursuing assertive economic growth policies.
Which government says 'our plan is to make us all poorer'? Economic growth just means having more resources to do whatever it is we think we should be doing.
Sen might have been too quick to dismiss Maitreyi’s concern with the ‘immortal’.
We can't be too quick to dismiss Sen because he is never said anything sensible or useful.
As the world faces moral and economic crises, perhaps it is more relevant than ever to
listen to smart people- not this extremely stupid woman.
return to Maitreyi’s question, and to ask: what if economic and social arrangements were actually conceived within a moral or even religious framework?
Whose? Manini's? But she is a cretin.
Would it help open our eyes to the real task at hand – human fulfilment?
It seems Manini's eyes are opened to 'human fulfilment'. Yet she writes stupid shite. Why is this fulfilling for her? The answer is because Campuses are 'safe spaces' where cretins like her aren't told that they are stupid, ignorant and useless even if they are White and have a dick.
Would the most urgent problems, from global poverty to climate change, benefit from the kind of moral deliberation that is required by a religious point of view?
If smart peeps deliberate on 'urgent problems', sure, that could be a good thing. But if useless cretins studying or teaching worthless shite get in on the action, fucked are we and fucked will we remain, unless we ignore them completely.
To understand why such a perspective might be helpful, let’s consider what the ‘capabilities approach’ developed by Sen, and a religious view of the problem of poverty, such as that offered by Catholic social teaching, have to say about freedom and the good life.
Catholic 'social teaching' isn't what made it the wealthiest, largest, and most powerful Religious organization in the world. People are Catholics, by and large, because they have Faith that the Church is the Bride of Christ and that one's whole family or community benefits greatly by its sacraments. The ordinary Catholic feels in his bones that Mummy and Daddy and all the good people will go to Heaven and be very very happy there. This justifies all their suffering and sacrifices in this Vale of Tears.
Most people think this aspect of Catholicism is wholly praiseworthy. However, Catholic economic, political, and sociological teachings have tended to be highly mischievous. The less said about them the better. The good news is that those who did 'first order good' did so not because of some stupid 'teaching' but purely and simply ad maiorem dei gloriam.
It was only after the Second World War that the aim of improving living standards in poor countries became an expressed goal of richer, non-Communist Western nations.
No. For The British Empire, this aim began to find Legislative expression from about 1930. However, there had been ad hoc transfers for various specific projects much before that. An example is the first Indian Agricultural Research Institute which was set up using a donation from a wealthy American guest of Viceroy Curzon.
‘Development’ as a political project arguably began in 1949 with the United States’ president Harry Truman calling for ‘a bold new program’ to redress worldwide poverty, hunger and disease. Truman began noting that more than half the people in the world lived in near-squalor, lacking adequate food or healthcare. He characterised their economic lives as ‘primitive and stagnant’, and the poverty in which they lived as a ‘threat both to them and the more prosperous’. The suffering, Truman said, was unnecessary: ‘For the first time in history humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of these people … I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realise their aspirations for a better life.’
Why couldn't this type of technology transfer not happen in the old way- i.e. through the market? The answer is that War time Capital and Exchange controls still existed. Governments had to take over a function the market was forbidden to perform. The hope was that technology transfer would be much faster and more efficient now it was being done by Governments. Predictably, the thing failed.
Truman’s vision of mobilising the benefits of scientific advancement, modernisation and industrialisation for the betterment of ‘underdeveloped areas’ ushered in a new era of political policies and agendas in global affairs.
No it didn't. Sheker should ask her parents or grandparents how and why Bureaucratic Technology and Capital Transfer failed. Sen could tell her. He was part of the reason American 'free money' turned out to be a curse, not a blessing, for the Indian economy.
In 1961, the UN passed a resolution requiring member states to ‘intensify their efforts’ in applying measures to promote economic growth and social advancement in individual nations, kickstarting the very first UN Development Decade.
It failed utterly. Still, like the drug dealers offer of free drug, it did get a lot of poor countries 'hooked'. They then borrowed recklessly and thus there was a Sovereign Debt crisis by the end of the Seventies.
Though the terms of change and the very ideology of development have been fiercely contested, with critics going so far as to argue that development interventions might actually be the cause of persistent poverty and ecological damage, more than 60 years later, the adoption of the UN’s latest to-do list – the Sustainable Development Goals – attests to the continuing importance of development as an ideal political project, shared, at least in theory, by governments and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) across the world.
Parasitic bureaucracies are willing to tell any type of lie in order to stay in business. The good news, if you are in the business of telling lies, is that all sorts of shady shit can be done under your auspices.
For the most part, the development establishment
is considered either useless or hopelessly sleazy.
has been suspicious of religion, a nervousness only exacerbated in recent years by the rise of religious extremism.
Sadly, the more vocal sort of Religion is fanatically 'right to life' and, previously, was also opposed to Contraception. Still, some Religious sects are good at certain types of Education though, of course, they might also be prone to cover up pedophilia. Still, you get what you pay for.
Institutionalised religion carries dark associations – it can be authoritarian, offend reason, thwart progress towards social justice and, in its most egregious, illiberal expressions, it serves up a retrograde vision of the future.
That's the good bit. The bad, is that it takes an unhealthy interest in the backsides of little boys.
There’s also the real fear that development activities, especially when carried out by faith-based organisations, can easily become pretexts for proselytising.
Unless it is in a Muslim country. Then the proselytizers have their throats slit. Speaking generally, do-gooders who know they will have bits chopped of them if they get out of line, are less, not more, noxious to the common weal.
Then there are those who, against much evidence, cling to the belief that religions are irrelevant to modern societies; that modernisation means secularisation.
How old fashioned! Why not also mention some other bunch of people who cling to the belief that women who can speak foreign languages are witches?
Yet religion does not appear to be going anywhere. It remains a potent force in public life, whether it be for peasants pressing for land reforms in Brazil
Does this lady really not know that Bolsonoro got elected thanks to the Bible thumpers? The 1988 Constitution does say that land should serve a social function and that the Government should expropriate and redistribute rural property that is not performing its social function. However, even the Left recognizes that peasants grabbing land will destroy Brazil's economy. This was a case of Catholicism trying to stay relevant by becoming Marxist but then losing even more relevance as believers switched to Evangelical or Pentecostal Churches.
or women mobilising en masse to end civil war in Liberia.
as with peasants who want land, women who want an end to rape and killing, aren't actually motivated by Religion. Sure the mainstream Churches can try to jump on the bandwagon and thus 'stay relevant' but then believers switch to new, non mainstream, Sects which represent 'Old Time Religion'.
And more crucially, for the majority of people in the world faced with suffering and the perennial uncertainties of life, religion can bring comfort, understanding and identity.
Provided it isn't just Marxism's warmed up sick.
In 2000, when the World Bank spoke to women and men from 60 countries about what really mattered to them, they said living in ‘harmony’ with the transcendent mattered to them.
This was a wholly worthless exercise.
A widow from Bangladesh, for instance, said that time for prayer was as essential to her welfare as a full stomach and mat to sleep on.
While a widower from Birmingham would have said time for watching porn and wanking was as essential to his welfare as watching football. Sadly, he wasn't asked.
For some, a meaningful life might even be the most basic human need.
And for some writing this sort of shite might be a careerist compulsion.
Acknowledging this fact can prevent development ‘experts’ from becoming what the US development theorist Denis Goulet in 1980 described as myopic ‘one-eyed giants’ who ‘analyse, prescribe and act as if man can live by bread alone’.
But nobody was listening to 'development experts' or this Goulet dude in 1980. Then China took off and everybody wondered why the fuck anybody had bothered with this shite. The fact is, if you have free capital markets and floating exchange rates, then places which really want to Develop, do develop. Those which don't, don't.
The moral base of a society also often finds its origin in religion.
And then discovers that Religion is just a service industry which has its origin in Economics. There may have been a time when some fools said 'without Religion, people will turn into Cannibals', but that was long ago.
Heeding the limits set forth by this base can be a check against unrestrained economic growth that imperils human and other life.
No. Having legal or administrative remedies can check negative externalities. Talking bollocks can't.
While Sen, a self-declared ‘godless scientist’, is averse to granting religion a role in development, his work, nevertheless, shifts development onto ethical grounds.
But he then shifts ethical grounds into deeply silly grounds- e.g. the notion that we should take account of the views of people living on distant planets.
Sen recognises the truth in Aristotle’s claim that ‘wealth is not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else’.
No. Sen doesn't recognize that anything is or can be true. Why? Well, if there is one proposition which is true- regardless of what anyone might say- then there is one instance where going in for 'Public Reason' is a waste of resources. But since the true proposition may be 'Public Reason is silly', it follows that there is no a priori 'reason to value' his shite.
Development, for Sen, should be first and foremost about ‘human’ beings, their lives, and what they can or cannot be or do.
But all Economics, not just Development Economics, is about this- save in so far as it is mere mental masturbation performed by some senile shitheads with tenure.
Until the 1990s, the World Bank, the International Labour Organization and other organisations pressed for an income-centred approach to poverty-reduction or meeting basic needs such as clothes, shelter and food.
But this is still what everybody wants. True, if you want to massage the figures to make out you have achieved a lot, then you can say 'though money income has gone down, sodomy has gone up. That's an increase in HDMI because under-employed people can now get PhD's in buggery online just by registering on my porn-site.'
Sen provides an alternative view that has been influential on the work of these organisations.
But that work is worthless.
The UN Human Development Index now includes measures on income, education and health but no other aspects of wellbeing. Despite progress, some argue that, even today, income remains the ‘quintessential’ indicator of wellbeing.
Indeed. The fact is, the education and longevity stats will have to be dropped altogether because it is clear that there are cultural and genetic factors involved. In some countries, people think it funny to give higher degrees to cretins. In others, incarcerating more minorities increases longevity coz the minorities tend to spend a lot of time shooting up or shooting each other.
Honed over the course of 25 years, Sen’s approach
is more useless now than every before
rests on the proposition that social arrangements should be appraised by how much they promote the freedoms that people value.
Appraised by whom? A bunch of cretins? Rich people may pay good money for a life-coach who 'appraises' their life and then works out a way they can feel more free and get more out of life. But who will pay for Sen-tentious warmed up sick?
Development means ‘expanding the real freedoms people enjoy’ – these include basic capabilities such as being able to read and write, agency over the decisions that affect one’s life, and participation in civic and political matters.
No. Development means being more productive and hence better rewarded. Suppose I were hired as a Beyonce look-alike. Development for me would mean getting booked at bigger and better venues. Eventually, I'm talent spotted and whisked off to Hollywood and get my own Netflix series. By contrast, being sent to jail- for lewd conduct- and then being forced to learn to read and write so as to qualify for early release would not be Development at all. I don't want to make decisions that affect my life. I want a Wealth Management guy and a Style Guru and a Fitness Coach and a personal Dietician and so forth. I also don't want to participate in 'civic and political matters'. That's the whole point of representative Democracy. You delegate the boring shite to guys who like that type of boring shite.
The focus on substantive freedoms directs attention to the destination (human development) rather than the means of getting there (income).
Which is why it is very very foolish. We all know we want to be healthy and happy and fulfilled. We don't need a guy to tell us this is a good destination. We want somebody to provide us the means to achieve these outcomes or, at the very least, show us how to use our existing endowments to do so for ourselves. If Sen had actually done any such thing, he wouldn't be an academic. He'd be running a trillion dollar business. An ambitious young person would pay more for a Course in 'Capabilities' than they would for a Harvard MBA because they could charge good money for turning 'capabilities' people may not know they have into lucrative 'performances'.
One problem with concentrating on income alone is that people have different abilities to convert the same resources into the ways of living that they value: a woman in a wheelchair, for instance, might need more income to be mobile than a person who can walk.
But she may also have less 'disutility' from boring types of work. Thus she may in fact have a much greater income than a guy who spends most of his time dancing in the street, coz Summer's here & the time is reet.
Shifting the focus away from income also prevents development from being narrowly defined as modernisation, economic growth or technological advancement.
Fuck income. Productivity is what matters.
Moreover, development aims to foster not just freedom, but also the exercise of one’s freedom. So the right way to lower fertility rates is not through coercive birth-control programmes (such as the former one-child policy in China) but by empowering women to make educated choices.
No. You have to raise the opportunity cost of having babies. This is 'incentive compatible' coz getting rural girls into big factory dormitories generates a surplus. By contrast, in countries where Governments have only about 20 cents a head to spend on 'empowering women to make educated choices', rather than just fist themselves in a sullen manner, nothing will be achieved.
Even if the overall results are positive from the narrow perspective of specific development goals (such as slowing population growth), coercing people will always curtail freedom.
People coerce people. One way to stop socially undesirable coercion is...coercion. There would be no freedom worth the name save for such coercion.
The freedoms that make up the aim of development also depend on people’s values.
The aim of development is becoming more like that which is already developed. No freedoms are involved in its 'make up'. There is a mimetic target and there is some method, more or less costly, to approach more closely to it.
Individuals and cultures will invariably disagree, so it is through public deliberation that one can arrive at any kind of consensus.
No. It is through transferable utility- you have to pay off the antaganomic nutters- perhaps by getting them jobs in the Academy or the International Aid bureaucracy or by subsidizing some type of busy-body Religion or woke Ideology.
While some philosophers have criticised Sen for not defining a set of key capabilities, the open-endedness of his approach is in fact one of its virtues.
If you want to earn a living by talking bien pensant shite without actually doing any first order good.
Recognising that people and societies have different values, he leaves room for the consideration of many of the non-material things that people might feel are important.
Like endless virtue signaling and incessant bollocks talking.
Alleviating poverty is a moral imperative, but
pretending to do so is part of the virtue signaler's
culture and a ‘good’ life (often derived from religion) also matters
to self-important shitheads who waste the resources which ought to be devoted to doing first order good.
In the real world, conflicts can and often do arise between competing freedoms that people value. In my research in the sacred Hindu city of Varanasi, I found that, while development has brought valued material progress for some, people also lament the accompanying loss of cherished ways of living and traditions, often rooted in religion.
This is the 'disutility' associated with having to work more in order to have nice shiny stuff.
Once, locals believed that the ‘good life’ was possible in Varanasi: the work weeks were irregular, which meant that they had the freedom to be carefree and revel in the city’s many fairs and religious festivals.
But then the population exploded because people weren't starving to death or dying of easily curable diseases. This meant that the number of people who could live a 'care-free' life on the basis of rent-extraction increased much less than the population as a whole. The less fortunate had to work harder because there was more competition though, on balance, they were materially better off for the same reason.
In the spring, when the Ganges was at its most beautiful, the locals closed up shop and spent the night outdoors for two weeks at a stretch; in the summers they celebrated the many musical traditions that marked the monsoon.
Now, some of them can go off on foreign jaunts or drive around in SUVs. The rest have to sacrifice leisure so as to earn money and have more food to eat and a chance to educate their kids.
Autumn brought the Ramlila, a 30-day staging of the Hindu epic the Ramayana, when people came together to commune with their gods.
While the country kept getting conquered and the Hindus kept falling lower and lower in the social scale. Sadly, Development started and so all these guys didn't end up being forcibly converted or having to watch all their temples being turned into mosques. Still, it's good to know the people of Benares remember the British Raj as a golden time. Sadly, if India wants to defend itself, Hindus will have to trade leisure for work of a productive sort.
Yet with the onset of a new rhythm of work conjoined with a greater desire to consume, people have less time for the city’s traditions – now the Ramlila mostly draws old men with time to spare and poor villagers.
Because it is as boring as shit. Where work has high disutility, people demand higher utility entertainment because they have less time to spare.
These changes provoke frequent debates on the consequences of economic progress and how one should live.
But those debates are between cretins.
While poverty alleviation is a moral imperative,
save for Sen-tentious shites who think virtue signaling is more important- provided they get impressive looking Credentials or get paid for providing such Credentials
culture and living according to one’s idea of the good (often derived from religious teaching) also matters.
Which is why many people want to emigrate to San Francisco.
Sen recognises that this cost-benefit analysis needs to take place on the ground, but he is reluctant to grant a role to religion in the process.
He does not have the power or influence to grant shit.
As a child growing up in East Bengal during the wane of the British Raj, he was aware of the devastation that could be wrought when people defined themselves as Hindu, Muslim or Sikh – and rioted.
When people converted to Islam they wanted to kill or convert Hindus or simply chase them away. That's what happened to Sen's people in East Bengal. But Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore were already aware of this tendency. That is why they petitioned the Brits to send more colonists. They explicitly said that only the presence of Europeans could prevent Muslims from dominating and forcibly converting or killing Hindus.
One afternoon, a Muslim labourer arrived at his family home, bleeding and asking for water. Searching for work in a Hindu neighbourhood, the man had been attacked by Hindu thugs.
Because Muslims were killing Hindus all over the Province.
Sen’s father took the injured man to the hospital, where he later died. Sen describes how the incident left him ‘deeply perplexed’: how could neighbours who had lived peacefully together suddenly turn against one another?
Sen was unaware that Muslims have always reduced the non-Muslim population wherever they have been able to do so.
For Sen, danger arose when people’s naturally plural identities were reduced to a single one, rooted in religion, eclipsing their freedom to think independently.
For everybody else, danger arises when guys who kill you if you refuse to convert are not locked up or killed.
The important thing was to defend the freedom to reason without recourse to dogma or authority at all costs.
Sen's people failed. They were driven out of East Bengal. The day may come when they also lose West Bengal. Still, settling in America seems safe. Americans have lots of guns and seem to enjoy using them.
For Sen, religion remains an aspect of identity rather than its source. The ‘good life’ for him is anchored around freedom – both in terms of the capabilities one values and the exercise of one’s agency.
But freedom needs lots of guns and bombs to defend itself. Sen is merely a parasite on the muscular vigilance of others.
However, Sen’s views come with their own secular, Enlightenment presumptions about the self and the good life.
No. His views come from his desire to virtue signal.
Other perspectives are needed to help realise human freedom.
No. Freedom is about killing or locking up those who would take it from us. Perspectives don't achieve shit. You stop having them if you are beaten thoroughly enough or if your head is chopped off pour encourager les autres.
Post-Vatican II, Catholic social teaching engages directly with
getting believers to switch to a sect less obviously determined to destroy itself so as to pave the way to a Marxist utopia
applying theological insights to the problem of contemporary poverty.
i.e. the Left's warmed up sick.
It recognises that social problems can benefit from reflection on the Christian message.
and the decision that the Christian message is stupid. Marxism is the way to go. The Church should slit its own throat, not wait for the Commissars to do it for them.
In many ways, the understanding of human flourishing derived from Catholic social teaching and from Sen’s work converge.
By destroying the discourse which gave rise to them. Sen started off as a Development Economist. Then everybody realized that Development Economics prevents Development. Similarly, some Catholics embraced 'social teaching' so as to retain relevance. But this meant Catholicism was useless. Christ was merely the magic feather Dumbo held in his trunk so as to believe he could fly. But he could fly without it- in so far as an elephant can fly at all. Thus Vatican II merely inaugurated a path to Marxist atheism. Sadly, Marxist economics destroys human flourishing. But when this happens people turn to 'Old Time Religion'. But it is the Evangelicals and Charismatics and Pentecostals who benefit. Come to think of it, even the Hare Krishna people and the Muslims benefit. Thank you, Vatican II! You have made many a Godman very rich.
Both recognise that the purpose of development is human dignity.
No. It is having cool stuff.
Dignity depends on exercising one’s agency and realising freedoms such as being healthy, living in a peaceful environment, and so on.
No it doesn't. A prisoner of conscience- like Nelson Mandela- may have great dignity.
Any economic model that comes out of Catholic social teaching would rest on the principles of equity, participation, sustainability and human development.
But it would fuck up the economy and precipitate lawlessness. Then a Bolsonaro or Duterte gets elected.
The rationale for human dignity in Catholic social teaching is a bit different, however.
Whatever its rationale, its consequence has been a decline in Catholicism with Evangelicals and Pentecostals picking up the pieces- save where it returns to Old Time Religion.
Catholic social teaching holds that humans are a reflection of God because they are created in his image.
By whom? God. So Catholicism ought to turn its back on 'Social Constructivism' and stupid Marxist shite.
Poverty-alleviation is a moral enterprise because it enables people to flourish in body and spirit, and thereby realise their eternal divine nature.
But talking bollocks isn't 'poverty-alleviation'. Setting up factories so people can earn money is the way forward.
Humans are also not inherently free material beings, but are dependent on God’s grace. Economic development is reoriented towards the transcendent, and the purpose of life is to realise God. The implications of this understanding for the project of development are profound.
No. They are irrelevant. Either Development happens because productivity is rising as people get jobs with higher disutility or there is no Development. This may be because everybody is too busy talking about God or Social Justice or the wickedness of shape-shifting lizards from Planet X who have taken over the Post Office and are using it as a cover for a vast pedophile network featuring top celebrities.
Freedom is not only about having money or the capacity to act; rather, it resides in the ability to do and be good.
No. Freedom means actually being free- not dead or in a Labor Camp. On the other hand the ability to do and be good is independent of Freedom.
‘The good’, in other words, is both the purpose of freedom and the means through which one realises God.
In the opinion of people who are bad at thinking.
Catholic social teaching also maintains that life comes with a responsibility to serve and act in the interest of the common good since it can liberate one from death and sin.
While fucking up the economy and paving the way for a horrible dictatorship.
So, importantly, one’s own liberty is tied to that of others.
Which is why it is a bad idea to want to destroy their economic and intellectual freedom.
Since the welfare of each individual and the welfare of all are inseparable, the impoverishment of another is likewise mine as well.
Furthermore, if any man shits himself, you too have shat yourself. That's why you stink. Fuck off out of here you great stinky pile of poo!
It is incumbent to fulfil the commandment to love, and perform acts of service that allow the recognition of Christ in the suffering of the poor.
It is incumbent on poor people who want to be less poor, or not-so-poor people who don't want to go back to being poor, to tell these nutters to fuck off.
Helping others to achieve a full life furthers one’s own humanity. Service is a moral obligation and a moral act that prevents economic development and human fulfilment
True enough. These guys hate both because they are 'merely individualistic'.
from being merely individualistic.
An extension of this concept of the common good is the ‘universal destiny of goods’. Here the idea is that all resources are given by God and therefore must be held in common and fairly distributed.
Humans represent a resource. They must be enslaved or killed unless they happen to be of the right Religion or Ideology. Many rapists believe that women are a resource created by God. They must be held in common and fairly distributed. Of course, some of these rapists may believe the same thing about little boys or even elderly men. I think we should kill them if they act on this belief.
While Sen believes that goods need to be redistributed in such a way as to further human flourishing through the process of democratic deliberation, Catholic social teaching goes further, claiming that the skewed allocation of resources such as land and money are unjust since they are part of mankind’s common inheritance from God.
Both are outflanked by the good people of ISIS and Boko Haram. All resources, including human resources, belong to God and must be equitably divided up amongst the chosen.
Catholic social thinkers hold that poverty neither determines human worth nor is a constraint to achieving ethical or salvific liberation.
Less stupid thinkers hold Catholic social thinkers to be very poor at thinking.
While poverty is not condoned, there is a recurring theme in Catholic thought that poverty can even strengthen and beautify the human spirit – voluntary poverty is certainly a mark of the good. Think of Saint Francis in Dante’s Paradiso, in romantic pursuit of Lady Poverty; he was the shepherd who, in making his choice to own nothing, ‘wore a crown again’.
But Italians work hard for their money- except when they don't, in which case their country slips behind Spain.
There is also a deep ambivalence towards material liberation. Eliminating social deprivation is a moral imperative, but there is a very real danger that material prosperity presents acute dangers.
There is a danger that acute danger is being presented. Wow! That's real profound. It blows my mind.
Real liberation comes only when material things are renounced and one accepts suffering and complete dependence on God.
But even realer liberation comes only when you stop talking stupid bollocks.
True freedom comes when material, ethical and salvific liberation are cultivated together.
And truer freer freedom comes when you tell virtue signalers to go fuck themselves.
In other words, true freedom can be attained only when all worldly goods are redirected towards God through charity.
True poverty can only be attained when you give away everything. True nakedness will also be achieved along the way. Sadly, you get arrested for public nudity. Then, because you babble incessantly about God, you get locked up in a loony bin. That's true freedom. Enjoy!
The danger comes
Why is danger always coming for this stupid woman?
when a society pursues a course of material development without subjecting it to moral deliberation.
No. Danger arises where 'moral deliberation' delays or prevents sensible actions from being taken.
It risks losing sight of the higher ends.
It is blind and stupid.
When pursuing a course of economic development, it is very important to raise questions about its meaning and relation to furthering ethical and salvific liberation.
No it isn't. Countries which have developed a lot did no such things. Shitholes which remained shitholes, on the other hand, feature a lot of people talking Gandhian shite and Sen-tentious shite and Quaker shite and Catholic shite and so on and so forth.
Still, it is good to know that Manini approves of Modi with his big white beard and incessant babble about 'Daridra Narayan'.
Assuming a position of moral neutrality
has no results just as assuming a position of moral non-neutrality has no results, unless you have a lot of resources and are able to change socioeconomic outcomes
results only in unreflective decision-making, an iniquitous society and an impoverishment that goes beyond material poverty.
but such impoverishment also goes beyond material wealth and immaterial health and arterial stealth and fellatial gealth and haplatial twelfth. All these are matters which must be studied and debated. Failure to do so will result in 'unreflective decision-making'.
Can a moral or religious framework ever be applied to secular societies or institutions where there might be competing views of the good?
Yes. This is because they can also be applied to dog turds.
Or do we always risk imposing one view of the good?
Manini risks ending up eating dog turds because her view of the good is stupid.
Some economists have argued that even secular institutions can engage in a process of ethical reflection without compromising the pluralism of an institution or imposing a view of the good – the purpose of this reflection is simply to orient the project of development from poverty-alleviation more fundamentally towards human fulfilment.
Any institution can do stupid shit. But it risks being defunded. Otherwise it gets infiltrated by anti-Semites and spends all its time talking about the plight of Palestinians.
These scholars argue that the idea that a life devoted only to material pursuits is insufficient is shared by faiths and non-religious philosophies alike.
A life devoted to talking bollocks is actually devoted only to material pursuits if talking bollocks earns you money.
Other communities, religious or secular, are likely to share many Catholic views of human fulfilment, such as the importance of loving and serving others,
by having anal sex with them?
the need to develop serenity and understanding in the face of suffering,
by punching Nuns in the face?
an appreciation of solitude and reflection.
while shitting contemplatively in the Sistine Chapel?
In May 2015, on the publication of Pope Francis’s climate-change encyclical Laudato Si, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) talked to people in Africa and South Asia about their views on what they see as good in their societies.
They got paid to do so. I suppose jobs are hard to come by if your brains are full of shit.
They asked what damages this goodness,
criminals, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, incompetent windbags incessantly talking bollocks, a dysfunctional public health and education system, terrorists and drug cartels and youth gangs etc, etc.
The solution is improving governance and implementing incentive compatible mechanisms such that Investment and productivity can rise.
what hinders and promotes development, and what should be done to take action.
Interestingly, people unanimously stressed the need for contemplation and slowing down the pace of development in order to have time for personal and community reflection on how to relate to each other and to nature.
They can have it at the price of lower life-chances. Indeed, that is what they will get. You can't develop if you don't want to. I myself have chosen to remain at the mental age of 7.
They also talked about the devastation wrought by the intrusion of a consumeristic and individualistic culture.
Probably because their priest fucked them in the ass and then gave them a piece of chocolate and said 'don't tell anybody. The other kids will be jealous of the individual attention I paid to your backside.' This sort of anal intrusion, consumeristic and individualistic as it is, has certainly disrupted the contemplative lives of many victims of the Church.
The point is not a matter of arriving at a consensus about the components of human fulfilment,
Some priests think this involves shoving their dicks up kiddies' poop-holes.
it is that there are non-economic consequences to pursuing a path of material development that relate to human fulfilment.
There should be highly punitive judicial consequences for the Church. Just paying damages is not enough.
Though Sen recognises the limits of focusing on material needs,
he hasn't actually sodomized kids. That's why he is in better odor than the Church.
his model places importance on freedom and agency over the realisation of God (or the good).
Many masturbate while thinking of some specific model or movie-star. No doubt, Sen's model too motivates some vigorous fisting.
Social arrangements should be gauged by the extent to which they enable the former.
And those who indulge in such gauging should be told to fuck off.
From a religious point of view, earthly freedom is subordinate to the highest liberation in God.
No. The two things are wholly unconnected or, in the case of those chosen to bear witness, there is an inverse correlation. The martyr may be scourged and imprisoned and then finally crucified. That's God's plan for the bloke.
It is important not to disregard
but more important to completely ignore
the significance of these concerns for millions of people worldwide, to remember that religious and non-religious communities share many ideas related to human fulfilment.
They may also share many ideas related to ghosts and vampires and the dangers of a zombie apocalypse
The Catholic view of human flourishing performs an important task by requiring any approach to economic development to consider seriously the moral and non-economic consequences of development.
But 'Social' Catholics have failed completely in actually achieving any development whatsoever. The same thing happened to the Gandhians and the 'Buddhist Socialists' and so on. Still, some god-fearing people did do some first-order good. Sister Ruth Pfau did good work in Pakistan. But it was Mother Theresa who enriched the Church.
Of course it is important to recall that not everyone shares a concern with salvation, and that any policy driven by such aims will invariably be in danger of marginalising opposing points of view.
Again with the danger! I suppose, if you hang around Catholic priests and look like you might be a little boy, then your butt-hole really is in constant danger.
Is it right to deny people the freedom to not live according to a religious framework?
Yes. If you are Religious, then cramming your shite down people's throats is considered salutary.
Sen’s approach has the merit that it gives people the freedom to decide whether they wish to preserve such ideals.
They already have such freedom and use it to tell him to fuck off.
One has to ask also if it is possible to engage in the kind of critical reflection that Catholic social teaching requires without in some way defining and limiting the nature of the good, and the kind of institutions that will enable its realisation.
If you are honest, no. That shit is retarded.
Such a delimiting of the concept of what is good immediately runs the risk of excluding other points of view.
Being retarded involves excluding smart points of view.
Even if most religions
are equally retarded and
do indeed share a basic moral framework including valuing charity and an aversion to excessive materialism, and stress the need for reflection on the purpose of life, the forms in which such concerns are articulated, and the ways of life prescribed to achieve these aims, are far from congruent.
Right. Some religions encode norms which promote development, others promote regression to the days of slavery.
When there is complete consensus among a more or less homogenous community, no problem need arise. But can there ever be such a consensus? Even in relatively homogenous countries such as Bhutan, the imposition of a model of development that is tied to one religious perspective has marginalised minority points of view.
Bhutan expelled a lot of Nepalese Hindus.
Not everyone shares the concern with salvation at the heart of Catholic social teaching, but it does offer a rich vision of human freedom, one that contains both the material and the ethical.
No. It is the Left's warmed up sick is all.
By foregrounding the ethical, it recasts development as a moral project, requiring policymakers, institutions and everyone concerned with the enterprise of human fulfilment to reflect critically on their aims.
And thus prevent any development from actually occurring.
It raises questions about the extent to which a programme or policy furthers ‘the good’. The process of reflection and critical deliberation is also key for Sen’s vision of development and human freedom.
Which is why countries which have Developed or which want to Develop, tell Sen to go fuck himself.
Development must be fundamentally based on
actually developing- i.e. raising productivity- not talking bollocks incessantly
a ground-up conversation between people, wrestling about what matters: what non-material things matter, and in what balance with the material.
Let's give it a try. You ask me where the toilet is. I reply 'toilets merely dispose of material piss and shit. The true toilet would dispose of immaterial piss and shit. But is such a toilet available on Earth or must we seek it in the Heavens?' You say 'I just asked you where the toilet was because your wife said she'd meet me there for a quickie. I am not seeking a place where I may, with probity, piss or shit. Thus your 'wrestling about what matters' in my question is otiose'. I kick your head in.
The questions of ‘what is a good life’ and ‘how ought one to live’ must be perennial concerns of any endeavour aimed at
talking bollocks not
human fulfilment, and must be central to both theory and policy of development.
of a sort which doesn't actually result in any such thing.
While the answers to these questions might stymie an unequivocal response, they are always worth asking if development is to enable human flourishing.
Is this true? Is there even one developed country where any such debate occurred in a manner which altered outcomes? True, in some countries, the Church tried to accommodate the Left but what then happened was that the Church declined. The fact is Religion is a service industry. Those sects which inculcate norms that lead to higher and higher productivity may continue to flourish so long as young people are interested in doing even better than their parents. But, if they start talking virtue signaling, woke, bollocks, the masses abandon them. They cease to be relevant. This may be a good thing for 'human flourishing'. But it does mean bull-shitters have to gravitate to some novel type of Sen-tentious shite so as to gain interessement, if not 'obligatory passage point' status.
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