The ultimate goal of any prosperous society is more freedom for the people. Specifically, the freedom to enjoy the types of lives that they desire. This includes choices in types of careers to pursue, relationships to engage in, and locations to live in and travel too. While this is the goal of a free society, the best way to go about achieving these ends is by giving the people as much freedom as possible to operate with. These freedoms come in the form of political and economic freedoms (which must always go hand in hand), social freedom and transparency (meaning important information must be available to the public), and personal security. Given these freedoms, the people will be able to enjoy more choices in the types of lives they lead. Studies have shown that these freedoms will also lead to higher incomes, better health, higher literacy, and longer lives.
Democracy is a fundamental building block of free societies. It is a central piece of the puzzle because it ensures that the poorest citizens are given a chance to be heard by all the rest. Our author notes how there has never been a famine in a democratic country for exactly this reason: the people affected are also directly involved in the processes of food distribution, and every hungry person gets a share. “Political and civil rights give people the opportunity to draw attention forcefully to general needs, and to demand appropriate public action. Governmental response to the acute suffering of people often depends on the pressure that is put on the government, and this is where the exercise of political rights (voting, criticizing, protesting and so on) can make a real difference.” If we look at the Irish famines of the 1840’s, we see a society controlled by the British, who were themselves removed from the front lines of the hungry Irish and cared little for their lives. The great famine in China from 1959-1961 is another example, where decisions were made by politicians at the top of the power structure and those at the bottom were left unheard when they pleaded for assistance. Neither of these societies gave their citizens political or social freedom and they collectively suffered for it.
What we can learn from this is that freedom is built from the bottom up. The less freedoms that the poorest people in a society enjoy, the less freedom the entire society enjoys. Additionally, while poverty is often thought of as lowness of income, it can also “be seen as the deprivation of basic capabilities.” If an individual has a middle class income, for example, but requires more of that income to take care of basic social necessities due to illness or disability, they have less capability to enjoy their freedoms and could be considered lower class. For an alternative example, perhaps an individual has a high income and is considered wealthy. If they lived in a society that had no political freedom (for example, a dictatorship) they could be considered less free than a poor individual living in a society that gave them a political voice. This is because the rich individual would have less capability to determine the direction of their life compared to the poorer one.
One of the fundamental bulwarks to the progression of human freedom is our modern way of identifying successful economies by the amount of wealth that is generated. In his book, Sen makes the case that freedom should be the ultimate goal of the economic activity of a society. This belief goes as far back as Aristotle, who once wrote that “wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.” That something else is happiness, prosperity, and leading good healthy lives of our own volition. In a word: Freedom. On this, I fervently agree.
Sen includes a chapter on women’s agency and social impact, and the findings are essential to the overall freedom of a society. He writes about how “reducing fertility is important not only because of its consequences for economic prosperity, but also because of the impact of high fertility in diminishing the freedom of people—particularly of young women—to live the kind of lives they have reason to value.” Women make up half the population, and giving them more freedom to determine their own lives creates more overall freedom in the society as a whole. When stated like this, it is an obvious fact, yet there are still many measures taken by different societies around the world to curtail the abilities of women to leads the lives they choose.
Examining the population as a whole, there are two big factors that exponentially increase people’s ability to lead free and fulfilling lives: healthcare and literacy. On this, Sen examines the spread of capitalism throughout different Asian countries and societies. In Japan, there has been an importance placed on literacy and the health of the population, and because of these societal values, capitalism (and freedom) have prospered. In Western Africa (Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone), as a counter example, things have not progressed the same. While they have made a push towards modernization and capitalism, they have not made the same improvements towards mass education and taking care of the health of their citizens. If both a Japanese citizen and a Liberian citizen are equally qualified members of the general workforce and they both break their leg, one will lose tremendously more freedom than the other due to their differing abilities to recuperate.
On a final note, Sen remarks on the importance of the role of the people in creating and determining their society. “The linkage between freedom and responsibility works both ways. Without the substantive freedom and capability to do something, a person cannot be responsible for doing it. But actually having the freedom and capability to do something does impose on the person the duty to consider whether to do it or not, and this does involve individual responsibility. In this sense, freedom is both necessary and sufficient for responsibility.”
So freedom exists in many balances. Collectively, we all want to live in societies that emphasize freedom, and we need different freedoms in order to create these idealized civilizations; freedom is both the ends and the means. Individually, we all want to feel free in our immediate lives as well, and we need to assume the responsibility and discipline this requires. We must remain active both collectively and individually otherwise atrophy will take a stranglehold and our freedoms will decrease.
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