Today, I will capture a few thoughts from our re-read of Development As Freedom. When this book was recommended, I viewed it as a stretch. Developmental economics is not a topic we have spent time on in our Re-read Saturday journey. That lack of time is a mistake. The ideas Sen captures in this book are as relevant to the world we live in today as they were when the book was published–perhaps even more at every level of human society.
Without recapping the entirety of the re-read, there are a few ideas I would like to highlight.
First, the goal of development should be to expand freedom. We can summarize Sen’s definition of freedom as expanding people’s capabilities and capacity to achieve a more fulfilled and unfettered life. Freedoms increase the range of decisions available to people, groups, and societies. Increasing the range of decisions of a competent person requires considering the consequences of those decisions. Waving a magic wand and declaring all unintended consequences are unpredictable is foolish. Most consequences are not unpredictable given thought; they just conflict with our biases, making thought uncomfortable. We are responsible for our own choices individually and as a society at a micro and macro level. Increasing our freedoms must balance with the constraints our biases and cultures create.
A related thread is the need to focus on freedoms rather than wealth. The author argues that the change in focus enables rather than constrains people and society. This is a difficult change as wealth is an easily understood measuring stick for individuals and countries. This type of yardstick is also seductive, it pulls at our hopes and dreams. How many richest people, companies, and country lists have you clicked on? Seth Godin recently suggested reframing questions as a way to change perspective. Instead of focusing on wealth or size, refocusing on freedoms and the journey to those freedoms is a powerful change in perspective.
A third thread I would like to highlight is the “omnipresent” conversation of rights from Chapter 9. The constant debate on rights often boils down to mediating conflicting freedoms and whether anyone is weighing the consequences of those rights. The more I contemplate the issue, the more I see “discussions” boil down to which set of consequences the proponents decide to believe in. Very little debate or conversation is going on. The words and positions reflect moral signaling just as a peacock signals to a peahen. No minds are changed, and knowledge is not shared. Stepping back from the societal level to consider organizational transformation, the same behaviors occur between the project and product mindset camps and between adherents to Scrum, Kanban, or PMI approaches. The noise you often hear is hardened camps debating whose choices and rights deliver the most value rather than focusing on expanding overall rights, freedoms, and choices teams have available to deliver!.
What is the goal of development? Wealth? Domination? Or Freedom? Sen’s upfront with his argument in Development As Freedom. The title says it all.
Re-read Saturday will be on hiatus until Saturday, June 7, 2025. In the interim, I have revisited and updated the re-read of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The next book we will re-read is Smart Brevity by VandeHei, Allen, and Schwartz.
Previous installments of Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen:
Week 1: Context and Logistics
Week 2: Introduction and Preface
Week 3: The Perspective of Freedom
Week 4: The Ends and the Means of Development
Week 5: Freedom and the Foundations of Justice
Week 6: Poverty as Capability Deprivation
Week 7: Markets, State, and Social Opportunity
Week 8: The Importance of Democracy
Week 9: Social Choice and Individual Behavior
Week 10: Famines and Other Crises
Week 11: Women’s Agency and Social Change
Week 12: Population, Food, and Freedom
Week 13: Culture And Human Rights
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