What did Sen actually think of India's reforms in the early Nineties? Did he think? Could he think? Probably not. This is what he wrote-
Outside India the reforms have been fairly universally welcomed,
because they solved a pressing problem
but they have been, since their inception, the subject of severe debate within India.
because they represented an abandonment of 'Nehruvian Socialism'
The controversies have been extensive, and the arguments on each side quite forceful and rm. This collection of essays is not—at least not directly—a contribution to those debates.
In which case, these essays are meaningless.
Rather, it is a part of an attempt to shift the concentration of economic arguments away from the rather limited issues on which these largely political debates have tended to focus. The object is not so much to search for authentic answers to familiar and well-rehearsed questions, but to ask and explore quite a different set of questions.
Which ones? Whether Spiderman can beat up Dracula?
These broader investigations, we argue, are needed right now,
by us, because the only thing we like talking about is Spiderman and Dracula
and they can inter alia alter even the way the more traditional queries are answered.
There are two elementary points of departure. First,
talk irrelevant bollocks
there must be an attempt to link the strategies of development to something more fundamental, in particular, the ends of economic and social development.
A strategy is a mapping from a set of instruments to a set of outcomes. Strategies of development are already linked to 'the ends' of development. Nobody had suggested otherwise. One might as well say ' we must attempt to link the strategies of killing Dracula used by Spiderman to the ends of killing Dracula which involve Dracula no longer being able to suck the blood of beautiful virgins.'
Why do we seek development?
Because we want to develop- i.e. have more of some desirable trait.
What can it achieve, if fruitful?
Development- i.e. having more of desirable traits and less of undesirable ones.
How are the successes and failures of policies —including the ‘reforms’ of traditional policies—to be judged?
By their outcomes in terms of having more or less desirable traits.
It is only with an explicit recognition of the basic ends that debates on means and strategies can be adequately founded.
This is simply untrue. Debates on strategies to kill Dracula don't require an explicit recognition that Dracula will no longer be able to suck the blood of innocent virgins. The thing is bleeding obvious.
The second basic departure takes us beyond the scrutiny of ends, to the investigation of means. What are the means that have to be employed to achieve these ends felicitously?
This is silly. The end is merely the terminus of the means. The ends do justify the means if there is such a terminus. If there isn't, it is obvious that the means give rise to hysteresis effects such that there is no actual terminus. There are further consequences and feedback loops.
While the debates on the current reforms concentrate on a particular class of means related to the use or non-use of markets (such as incentives for private investment, reliance on international trade, and so on), there are many other means, especially dealing with the ‘social’ side of economic operations and successes, which typically tend not to figure in these debates.
In which case, rope in a Sociologist or people with domain expertise. Don't get in a Sen-tentious theorist.
To the foundational lacuna of neglecting the scrutiny of the basic ends
which never actually occurs. People know that when they order a sandwich, it is because they want to eat it and gain nourishment from it. No fucking 'scrutiny' is required.
is, thus, added the more immediate gap of ignoring the examination of some powerful means that help us to achieve those ends.
Such ignorance can only be found in Sen-tentious theorists.
In fact, we argue that achievement of even the limited objectives
which was to put an end to the Balance of Payments crisis.
of the current reforms will depend crucially on
elasticities of demand and supply for internationally traded goods and services. That's it. That's the whole story. There is no need for
conscious and organized pursuit of the social means on which economic performance and results are frequently conditional
because the 'social means' are captured precisely by the relevant elasticities. This is a purely alethic, objective, matter.
. This collection of essays presents and develops the arguments for taking a much broader view of the needed economic and social change in India.
But it was only a balance of payments crisis- that too under a minority government- which concentrated minds sufficiently to enable the reforms to go through. The plain fact is that whatever 'needs' Sen thought India had, Indian policy makers did not. So what follows is just pie in the sky.
In this first chapter the reasoning is developed at the national level, looking at India as a whole. That reasoning has been developed more extensively in the companion volume (Drèze and Sen, 1995). While that is mainly a ‘national’ study, the argument draws, among other things, on the deep diversities that characterize the varied economy of India. The diversities are partly related to India's varied history before independence (for example, the bulk of modern Kerala is made up of what were so-called ‘native states’—Travancore and Cochin—formally outside the British empire
but actually more, not less, controlled by Britishers. By contrast there were large tracts of directly ruled territory where the zamindars or taluqdars or other local notables had far more power.
) and after the British left (for example, the relative strengths of political parties have been quite different in the different regions of India).
But such 'relative strength' did not correlate with differential achievement though it did correlate with the adoption of British methods and modes of thinking.
But the diversity relates also to the nature of the Indian constitution, which identifies as ‘state subject’ many areas of governmental action that are crucial to economic and social development.
But that merely reflects ethnographic and socioeconomic diversity. Sen must have noticed that the people of an Indian State tended to speak the same language and have a common habitus.
Thus, the historical diversities have tended to be consolidated and reinforced by the legal structure of the Indian union.
No. The legal structure follows the human geography because that's how history works.
An understanding of the Indian economy has to be informed by an adequate recognition of deep-seated regional diversities and heterogeneities.
No it doesn't. All that matters is whether there is access to open markets. That's what the reforms made clear. Get rid of red tape and trade barriers and the more 'Britishified' States start to take off. The less Britishified ones understand that they need to get their kids to study English and do Engineering and create Enterprises rather than focus on kidnapping or rape as a way of life.
India can learn a lot from the experiences of other countries which have done, in different ways, better than we have.
Learning doesn't matter. Imitating does. I have learnt a lot about how Beyonce become such a successful star. But, because I didn't imitate Beyonce, I have failed to rise up in the world as a twerking diva.
Imitation need not involve any actual learning.
More on that presently, but we must also note the fact that India has much to learn from India itself.
Why stop there? Why not say 'India has much to learn about learning from India from learning from India learning from India itself'?
We live in a most diverse country, and in many spheres our records are extremely disparate.
Not really. India was less diverse than comparable big countries because stupid economic policies had kept almost everybody as poor as shit.
The average levels of literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality, etc., in India are enormously adverse compared with China, and yet in all these respects Kerala does significantly better than China.
Not if you compare Kerala to a Chinese littoral population with good emigration possibilities. Economists are supposed to compare apples with apples.
For example, in adult female literacy rate, India's 39 per cent is well behind China's 68 per cent, but Kerala's 86 per cent rate is much higher than China's.
They are now level pegging in literacy, but Chinese per capita income is quadruple that of Kerala.
Indeed, as will be presently shown, in terms of rural female literacy, Kerala has a higher achievement than every individual province in China.
Did this enable it to do better than China? No. China had more thoroughgoing reforms. It is only now that Kerala has a CM who wants to be the Deng Xiaoping of India. We are speaking of forty wasted years.
Lawrence Hamilton, a political theorist, published a book in 2020 titled 'How to read Amartya Sen' from which the quotations given above were extracted.
My own finding is that the right way to read any sentence written by Amartya Sen is
1) to establish what factual claim it makes and, by doing a bit of Googling, to discover it is egregiously false
2) to consider what economic or philosophical theory Sen is appealing to and establish that Sen has totally misunderstood or misapplied that theory or concept.
3) to consider what value-judgment Sen is making and to establish why it is evil or mischievous.
It would be nice if there was some way of reading Sen such that some useful technique or policy suggestion becomes available.
Hamilton takes this optimistic view-
The best way to ‘read’ Amartya Sen, I suggest, is as a series of courageous theoretical and practical innovations regarding how better to solve instances of injustice via the support, revitalization and reform of democracy, especially in India.
But Sen hasn't made a single theoretical or practical innovation and done nothing to solve any type of injustice or reduce any type of malfeasance or inefficiency. He has had zero role in the 'revitalization' or 'reform' of democracy in India or elsewhere.
India, the largest democracy on the globe and the oldest in the developing world, is
a democracy only because, firstly, that was the political system bequeathed by the Brits and secondly because it is linguistically diverse but overwhelmingly Hindu. Where Hindus aren't in the majority, there is secessionism. Democracy suits Hindus who feel they need to hand together or else once again succumb to Muslim or Communist salami tactics.
rightly proud of its postcolonial achievements in terms of formal democracy.
But India could have got universal franchise at the same time as Ceylon in 1931! The Muslims objected and so it was not obtained. The Brits can be proud of holding the first elections in India, Ceylon, Burma, etc and handing over power to elected governments there.
Yet, this record has not translated into substantive democracy, that is, the kind of achievements in quality of life across the board that would empower all of its residents to take advantage of both its growth in GDP terms and the successful maintenance of formal democracy.
Britain and America and France and everywhere else have also failed to achieve 'substantive democracy'. There are differences in quality of life across the board in all these countries. Which planet has Hamilton been living on?
India chose to pursue a Socialist path and thus remained poor like other similar Socialist countries. But that was a democratic choice. The plain fact is, democracies can decide to do genocide or to starve a portion of their population or to ethnically cleanse them or to render them little better than slaves or serfs.
The Covid-19 situation in India is a powerful illustration of this lack of empowerment.
No it isn't. India had lower mortality than USA but China did very much better than either precisely because it isn't a liberal democracy. What Covid showed was that authoritarianism is better at controlling populations because...urm... it is authoritarian. That's important when it comes to things like
1) preventing epidemics through quarantines, compulsory vaccinations etc.
2) implementing compulsory education
3) rationing food and preventing hoarding during periods of food availability deficit
4) punishing law breakers and purging repugnancy markets
India’s associated abrupt and severe lockdowns have accentuated the inequalities and deprivations of its massive population.
Nonsense! Inequalities and deprivations persist for demographic reasons. Poor people who have lots of kids perpetuate poverty. Rich people who have few kids whom they educate and bequeath assets to, cause higher income and wealth for their descendants.
Demographic transition was delayed in India because India pursued a Socialist path under corrupt and incompetent leaders. However, opportunities for migration greatly impacted life-chances.
Although the highest infection and death rates are still in the wealthier megacities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai, the virus is now spreading fast in more rural areas in the east and south of the country.
Viruses also spread in rich countries. Hamilton is too stupid to understand that something which affects both the rich and the poor can't explain why some are rich and some are poor. Reading Sen has made him stupid.
And, it is the urban and rural poor who feel the full force of the three-pronged crisis.
Whereas rich people who die or get very very fucking sick don't feel there is any crisis- right?
The abrupt loss of livelihood due to associated job losses is creating a very dangerous mix of viral spread and impoverishment.
Male migrants may have taken a big hit for about 6 months between 2020-21. Female migrants may still be less remuneratively employed. India is so desperately poor and its organized sector still so shackled that work disutility and purchasing power considerations neutralize much of the welfare effect we would expect. I suppose, transfers cushioned the blow to a greater extent than previously. However, it should be borne in mind that Indian economic development has been so badly mismanaged that migrants have faced other types of disruption before. In other words, welfare is so low and uncertainty so high that impoverishment is the rule. Departures from it are the exception. Only demographic transition can alter this stark fact.
The poor, migrant workers, for example, which make up a huge proportion of the Indian population and economy, come from historically disadvantaged classes and castes
with higher fertility. The 'advantaged' are becoming a smaller and smaller proportion of the population.
and work very low-paying jobs without legal contracts.
Thanks to Democracy. Legislators pass laws which won't apply to the vast majority. This is virtue signaling- just like what Sen and Hamilton are doing.
They live hand to mouth. The original decision to abruptly lockdown India
which was the result of the abrupt decision of COVID to start killing people
left them marooned far from home, without shelter, work and sustenance, bar the incomplete coverage provided by the public distribution system (PDS) and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).
But that work was precarious. Why? Crazy labor laws. If you more or less criminalize employment there is no route out of poverty.
Overnight this generated a mass migrant exodus, which has been compared to the great migration during partition (Deshingkar 2020). And, as the disease spreads east, for example, it is those who eke out basic subsistence in the poorest states, such as Bihar and Jharkhand, with high population density and much weaker medical infrastructure, who will be under the most severe threat of food insecurity and infection (Drèze 2020).
What was the alternative? Let the disease kill off tax-payers and employers? What jobs would there be for migrants then?
All told, the poorest, most precarious and least powerful parts of India’s population have been largely abandoned by the Indian state
Sen abandoned India long ago
in their time of need.
No. The State made what provision it could for them in return for their votes.
The arrogance and indifference to the plight of these lower caste, uneducated, labouring classes brings into sharp relief the extreme inequities Sen has fought for more than half a decade to overcome (Mander 2020).
What fighting has Sen done? He didn't even beat up his best friend so as to run away with his wife. He went to England and then America and made some money teaching worthless shite and pretending he cared deeply about poor people.
In the second edition of Drèze and Sen’s magisterial account of the various things that have plagued public policy for development in India, especially in areas such as health, education, social security, environmental protection, economic redistribution and so on, they argue convincingly that these components of development depend on public action.
No. They depend on sensible actions. India went in for stupid public actions and private hypocrisy of a Sen-tentious sort. To improve health outcomes, you have to defund shite hospitals and sack useless doctors and nurses. To improve education, you have to shut down shite schools and sack teachers. To protect the environment you have to kill people who would otherwise kill those who try to stop their illegal activities. Some of these people may be very poor. But to help the majority, you have to be ready to harm a minority. Self-interested people who belong to the country may have an incentive to do so. Sen-tentious scoundrels have none. They can go on ranting in a paranoid fashion about an evil neoliberal state which is very callous and unfeeling and probably Islamophobic and totes Fascist. Meanwhile Indians will vote for Indians who actually live in India and who are willing to exercise power- not talk bollocks incessantly. Look at Rahul. He won't or can't be part of the solution. Thus nobody listens to him when he prates on about everybody's duty but his own
Effective public action is not possible without significant change to how it is thought about and implemented in India.
This requires getting rid of Sen-tentious cretins and NGOs and andolanjivis and PILs. They insist on crazy laws which keep the country poor and then clutch their pearls and express amazement that the poor can't rise up.
It depends on high standards of governance both in the determination of where and why extreme deprivations exist
the brains of our virtue signalers are extremely deprived.
and how best to keep corruption at bay and accountability to the fore.
But there still won't be enough money to do take care of material deprivation.
It is an indictment on successive Indian governments over the last two decades or so that,
they let virtue-signaling nutters roam around preventing development so as to boost their own reputation and get rewarded by Western Academia and NGOs.
despite high levels of growth, its latest social indicators are still ‘far from flattering’.
That's not how indictments work. If a crime has occurred- e.g. money for social welfare has been stolen or misspent- then that is what the indictment mentions. It does not mention that some indicator is flattering or unflattering. You may be indicted for killing your wife. You can't be indicted because the wounds you inflicted on her have made the photograph of her in her coffin 'unflattering'.
China may have been less successful at keeping famines at bay,
It exported food to get hard currency even though people were starving. Stalin did the same thing. But it reformed agriculture and industry to a greater extent than India over the last 40 years.
but in terms of social progress – from ending poverty to the provision of decent education and functional toilets – it has been far more successful than India.
Because it isn't a democracy and shoots or Gulags those who don't get with the program.
Moreover, as regards most relevant social indicators India is still worse off than many of its much poorer south Asian neighbours, such as Bangladesh,
which started to do privatization under Ershad in the early Eighties and which has shifted rural girls into giant factory dormitories
Bhutan,
which expelled Nepalese
Nepal
which Nepalese don't believe
and Sri Lanka.
which has gone off a fiscal cliff
With the sole exception of Pakistan, India has the lowest life expectancy, the highest child mortality rate and the highest fertility rate.
Because it is more democratic and still more Socialist than any other country in the region. Also, it has too many Sen-tentious cretins objecting to any type of reform.
In terms of sanitation and child nutrition India fares worse than all of its neighbouring countries. Its rates of female literacy are amongst the lowest in the region. And, staggeringly, over 40% of India’s children are underweight, compared to 25% in Sub-Saharan Africa (Drèze and Sen 2020).
Sen and Dreze are boasting of the achievements of their ilk in preventing India from rising up. Sadly, those nutters are being increasingly disintermediated. Preventing Indian NGOs getting foreign cash to fuck up Indian development- an initiative revived by Manmohan but which he could not carry through- is beginning to curb this nuisance.
So, it is a little surprising that Sen has held firm to a view of ‘democracy by discussion’ as a way out of this predicament.
But Indian democratic discussion has come to the conclusion that Sen-tentious shite is wholly mischievous. Bhagwati said this baldly when UPA was still in power. Sen failed to discuss or debate him or anybody else.
It is surprising for two reasons. First, it is not clear how this view of democracy could transform the power relations and associated social, economic and political structures that undergird India’s stubbornly unflattering social indicators. These forms of domination in terms of caste, class and gender need less polite mechanisms of change.
But 'less polite mechanisms' may lead to incarceration, if not mob-justice handed out by the majority. Democratic mechanisms of change have, quite lawfully, disintermediated the Lefty virtue signalers. Soon there will be visa bans on them. They can still write nonsense but they can't pretend to have an emic perspective or to be doing evidence based research.
Second, it is far from clear that ‘democracy by discussion’ can provide the kinds of incentives and guidance to elites to make judgements in line with the varied – often competing – interests of their populations as a whole. We need to look elsewhere to properly empower the least powerful, those at the bottom of the economic ladder, often without voice.
Where did these nutters look? Was it to knee-jerk support for any crazy 'aandolan'? Consider the recent farmers' agitation. People like Gerta Thurnberg lost credibility for supporting it even though reform is needful to prevent an ecological catastrophe. Dreze, poor fellow, felt obliged to admit that though cash transfers are better, subsidies are the only real option. Yet, it is obvious, that subsidies will disappear as States are forced to provide them by taxing the urban and landless sections of the population. Look at what happened in Punjab. It was the urban, Hindu, bania, Kejriwal who benefited. His party swept the polls. Going forward, it is clear that voters will insist on getting cash and freebies (e.g. x amount of free electricity) which in turn means that the State has to prune subsidies to special interests. No doubt, there will be an entitlement collapse for many along the way but the final equilibrium will be one where voters are directly bribed and vested interests are disintermediated. Meanwhile, Leftists will continue to lose obligatory passage point status. In other words, going forward their input on such matters will simply be ignored.
As discussed in the first two chapters of this book, Sen is rightly famous for his explanation for why famines do not occur in democracies.
Though Bangladesh was a democracy in 1974.
Even though only a minority in the population may actually face the deprivation of a famine, a listening majority, informed by public discussion and a free press, can make government responsive.
Or unresponsive. If the majority wants the minority to fuck off and die that could be the outcome. Suhrawardy was blamed for the '43 famine. In '46 he became the Premier. Mujib would have been re-elected if he had not been assassinated though, of course, he may have dispensed with elections because it had become obvious that democracy can cause vast excess mortality from food availability deficit because of corruption.
More pertinently for India, following political independence, famines, despite threatening on a number of occasions, were firmly kept at bay due to
American aid, in the first instance and then massive support to the best and most prosperous farmers which in turn meant that the Left was disintermediated by the rise of caste and religion based 'intermediate class' vernacular, regional, political configurations. There was once a time when the second largest share of the popular vote was won by the Communists. That was in the Fifties.
this vital practical benefit provide by democracy. By contrast, famines were a common occurrence under authoritarian British rule.
No. The Brits stopped them. However, in 1937, elected Ministries got control of food. Bengal, in particular, suffered. Democracy's great gift to the Bengali was famine and ethnic cleansing. Their revenge was accomplished by exporting Sen-tentious academics and 'activists'.
Alongside the periodic role that elections play in keeping democratic governments accountable – it is partly because of the need to win votes that government has to listen –
Lawrence Hamilton may find that Whites like him will have to run away from South Africa precisely because 'governments have to listen'.
So, despite what I say in chapter 5 below, that there are three main views of democracy –
there is one sensible view- viz. democracy is majoritarian. In the short to middle term, the majority may be tolerant if there is a perceived economic benefit they disproportionately receive. Long term, they prevail.
‘elite’ or ‘minimalist’, ‘liberal’ or ‘realist’ and ‘deliberative’ or ‘discursive’ – and that Sen’s view sits squarely in the last of these, it is possible to identify a fourth, more radical version of democracy.
One that ends up fleeing the country or incarcerated or so utterly impotent as to be ignored by all.
It is not that distant from Sen’s own, but it is also not identical. It is more realistic about the significance of economic and social position in shaping public action and policy support and less sanguine about the power of discussion. Moreover, it provides sharper teeth as regards the stubborn realities of class and caste everywhere, and particularly in India.
Having sharp teeth does you no good if the majority has guns or just sticks to beat you to death with. Man has prevailed over the tiger and the wolf.
Much more can be said about this more radical view democracy, especially as regards what forms of institutional change would enable this dynamic, anti-oligarchic form of democracy to consistently empower the least powerful in social and economic terms and keep elites properly in check.
It can be said by Trump and Bolsonaro and QAnon or anybody else. Nobody has a monopoly of crazy. The problem is that campuses won't continue to be 'safe spaces' for Sen-tentious shite. They will be defunded. A Credentialist Ponzi scheme will collapse or has already done so.
Complimenting Sen’s groundbreaking work with Ambedkar on democracy may be a good place to start (Drèze 2018). For, although Sen’s capability approach provides an excellent tool of analysis and on-the-ground empowerment, it is surprisingly silent about who would be best placed to undermine existing forms of domination. Representatives of marginalized or oppressed groups, with class- and caste-specific quota in representative institutions (or specific offices, as in Rome’s tribunes of the plebeians) would be best placed and incentivized to keep the domination of elites at bay (Hamilton 2014).
The Brits had plenty of quotas and reserved seats and so on. Majoritarianism prevailed. All that shite was swept away save where it increased the power of the Center.
Even when representative democracy works best, public discussion does not bring about deep-seated change, at least in terms of the kinds of power relations and social realities that bedevil India.
A good thing because deep-seated change tends to involve famine and ethnic cleansing and a more illiterate bunch of gangsters grabbing power.
While it is true that in the long-term changing identities and values through public discussion makes old kinds of politics impossible and new kinds possible,
the BJP has become the default national party thanks to anti-national nutters of the sort Sonia encouraged.
in the short-term, empowering oppressed or marginalised groups is what brings change, often through confrontation, disruption and resistance.
Hindus like Modi were indeed marginalized. The odd thing is that India started to rise up when they pushed their way to the top. Even 10 years ago most economists my age would have voted for Rahul. Now, we see no alternative to Modi till Kejriwal- or some coalition of regional satraps- can put forward a credible candidate for the top job.
Unfortunately, contemporary India, with its recent authoritarian and ethno-nationalist turn threatening the fundamentals of even formal democracy, looks highly unlikely to engender either kind of change.
Translation- 'sadly, India has too many Hindus. Worse, those Hindus want to be richer and stronger. That's totes Fascist!'
So, a clear grasp of Sen’s ideas (supplemented by an updated version of Ambedkar’s vision of democracy) is now doubly important to save the world’s largest democracy.
Sen has no ideas. He just wastes everybody's time by saying stuff like 'before we can have an idea we need to clearly distinguish between what an idea means and the means by which meaning itself can be a means to talking yet more interminable bollocks.
In other words, what is needed is more radical agents of change, that is, institutional structures that effectively incentivize representatives to support progressive change (Hamilton 2018).
People don't need material things like food and clothes. They need radical agents of change, institutional structures, that effectively incentivize broad-based campaigns demanding the right to food and clothes. It doesn't matter if they starve to death in the process of campaigning for the creation of effective institutions which can campaign for the campaigning for effective institutions which can incentivize such campaigns.
In sum, if we read Sen’s courageous and elegant ideas in the way I suggest, we will all be inspired to face two challenges democracy reveals.
Only if some worthless University department is paying us to be so inspired.
First, we must find a roadmap for how we can properly make the health and well-being of a state’s population the raison d’être of its government.
Which involves finding a roadmap for how we can properly make the health and well being of those looking for that roadmap the raison d' etre of our search. This means getting a grant and then tenure or a sinecure with some stupid NGO or kleptocratic billionaire's bogus Foundation.
The first thing to identify is that health is not the mere absence of disease but the status we each have when our ever-changing needs are optimally satisfied.
Which is why, if your Uni isn't offering you tenure, you should be allowed to present a Doctor's note signed by your Mummy (whose health requires she be recognized as an M.D) which clearly states 'give this little shit tenure already. Nobody else will offer him a job coz his brain is full of shit. It's a fucking medical condition I tell you! Make him a Professor otherwise everybody will think he is sick in the head.'
For this, we need a politics that allows us to express and assess our needs,
Very true. Currently, I get sent a voter registration card which asks me to confirm I live at such and such place and have the right to vote. This is unacceptable. The Electoral Commission should encourage or at least allow me to express my needs- including my assessment that I need to be recognized as the Queen of Engyland due to the Nicaraguan horcrux of my neighbor's cat is totes Fascist and Neo-Liberal and shit.
and determine who is best placed to represent us in responding to these needs, all in non-dominating conditions (Hamilton 2003, 2014).
Exactly! Nicaraguan horcrux of pussikins is totes domineering! Army should take action.
Second, given that it is no accident hat those leaders who have responded worst to the Covid-19 crisis have also been the main sources of countless conspiracy theories and misinformation, we must learn to keep oligarchs away from political power.
This is simply untrue. Peru, not Brazil, was the worst affected though Peru had gone for lockdown immediately and had emphasized the danger. Bulgaria was the second worst affected even though it too was quick off the mark. Orban's Hungary takes the fourth spot- but Orban used COVID to take dictatorial powers!
Oligarchs don't want to die. They are likely to support stringent measures against a pandemic.
Under representative democracy, bar outright revolution, we do not have the power to affect the everyday decisions of our representatives,
Yes we do. We can phone them or go and see them. They understand that we can switch our vote or stop donating money and time to the party. I used to have an MP whose office would phone me to get my views not because anybody thought I was smart or influential but because my reactions were typical of the great mass of stupid people- i.e. voters.
but we can keep those with exclusive social and economic interests out of positions of political power.
Very true. Keep out the Jews and the Bankers and the Lawyers and the Homosexuals and the immigrants and my cousin brother who falsely claims that I iz a bender what got rich by sucking off Jewish billionaires of immigrant origin. Actually, it is him wot is the pouf. Anyway, Uncle promised that I'd be our Party's candidate after he died. It's totes unfair that his son is claiming to represent the Iyerland Liberation Front just coz he takes it up the arse from leprechauns. I have discussed all this in my PhD thesis.
Amartya Sen’s incredibly rich and ground-breaking contributions in ethics and economics, outlined in this book, have revolutionised so many of our received opinions, making us look afresh and act differently.
What has Hamilton achieved? Nothing. What was Sen's contribution? Zero. Useless tossers continued to virtue signal in a useless manner. But nobody was listening.
As his readers, we must use our political agency
Hamilton has none
to find effective ways of enabling the political changes necessary to implement his ideas and harness their capability for real freedom for all.
Sen got a Nobel for being brown. Hamilton isn't brown. Sooner or later, South Africa will dispense with the sort of fig-leaf he represents. We imagine him growing old on some provincial campus in Europe or America arguing with other geriatrics about how S.A needn't have turned to shit if only its black population had had effective institutions which could convince them they weren't black at all. They were actually Sen-tentious Professors of some worthless shite.
I am very grateful to Richa Burman
apparently she was a commissioning editor at Penguin
for suggesting I write a preface for this new edition, to Penguin and Polity for enabling it and, in particular, to Jean, for ever so politely and firmly bringing us all together to make it a reality. Thanks too to Laurence Piper for commenting on a draft of this preface, as did Jean, twice, and to Jean for his elegant foreword. Last and not least, Amartya: thank you for your very kind reception of the first edition of this book. If and when this crisis abates, I hope we are afforded the opportunity to discuss these ideas.
Lawrence Hamilton
Johannesburg
13 July 2020
So this book was written to order for a small clique which makes a little money by publishing nonsense. Who, outside that clique, can be grateful for it? Nobody. There is only question to ask when reading the work of an economist- does it actually lead to the economizing of the use of scarce resources? If not, what has been written is nonsense. Political Philosophy, on the other hand, is not meant to be read at all. It is merely a symptom of a mental illness for which one may be rewarded- if the right bunch of nutters gain power ; or punished- if it proves too much of a nuisance. Otherwise, the thing is as pointless as socioproctology.
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