Poverty and political freedom are two aspects of life that do not seem to go hand in hand, an idea seized upon by Indian economist Amartya Sen, who has proposed the idea of democracy as a protection against famine. Common sense makes people assume that political freedom is nothing without basic living amenities such as clean water, food and shelter, and things such as education and healthcare. This view implies that those living in poverty would prefer a minimally welfare-oriented authoritarian government to a democratic government that fails to reduce poverty. So what is more important?
The problem with this is that either way basic human rights are ignored – on one hand the people miss out on basic living needs, but on the other hand they miss out on political freedom. This begs the question of freedom in exchange for life..
In Sen’s book Development as Freedom he looks at honey collectors of Sundarbans in West Bengal, who risk their lives (and the anger of tigers) to earn a living. People are willing to put their lives on the line in order to earn money to feed themselves, and it brings up the question of whether it would b easier to give up their liberties and easily gain their living amenities.
I’m definitely not saying that people should choose food over freedom, but this idea does make you realize how important people place their political freedom.
If you were in a state of utmost poverty, where would you place your wish for political freedom? If it meant food, water and shelter, would you give these freedoms up?
I think that given the choice between political freedoms and a secure supply of basic amenities, the overwhelming majority of people will, have, or continue to, choose having the latter. This is just basic human instinct and common sense. Not much point in having the vote if you starve to death now is there.
ReplyDeleteBut this seems to be a classic long-term short-term tradeoff; without basic political rights, it is more likely that you will starve eventually, as Sen notes. His point is that only democracies have successfully avoided famines.
ReplyDeleteHe may have said that, but I would disagree.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of authoritarian regimes which have successfully avoided famines, just as there have been plenty of famines in democratic countries. I will however agree that famines are probably more likely in states with authoritarian regimes, if only for the reason that they tend to be less economically developed.
This is a very interesting point. One wonders if the starving masses think ahead enough to consider whether a different political sytem would change their situation. As Matthew said, I would be inclined to think that basic survival instinct would point people towards feeding themselves and families, then considering how to avoid the famine repeating itself.
ReplyDeleteI mis-wrote. Sen's point is that no democracy has ever suffered a big famine, whereas plenty of non-democracies have. It's not that "only" democracies have done this. A lot depends on how you define what counts as a famine; democracies certainly suffer from hunger (e.g., India, where Sen is from), but unless you have some special data, Matthew, Sen certainly provides evidence for his claims. What examples do you have of large-scale famine (different from hunger) in democratic countries?
ReplyDeleteThe point is relatively simple: in democracies, politicians will have some incentive to prevent their constituents from starving, the media will probably relay information about famines to the center, and most famines have political rather than "natural" causes. Great famines in China during the Great Leap Forward were not even reported to Mao in the 1950s, for example, since all the officials had incentives to dissimulate and report only good news; and India has never suffered a famine with large numbers of deaths since it became democratic (though it has suffered from hunger), in contrast to the situation when it was a British colony, when it regularly suffered such famines.