Development as Freedom (32 page)

The challenge of development includes
both
the elimination of persistent, endemic deprivation and the prevention of sudden, severe destitution. However, the respective demands on institutions and policies of the two can be distinct and even dissimilar. Success in one field may not guarantee success in the other. For example, consider the comparative performances of China and India over the last half century. It is clear that China has been much more successful than India in raising life expectancy and reducing mortality. Indeed, its superior performance goes back to well before the economic reforms of 1979. (China’s overall progress in enhancing life expectancy has been, in fact, rather slower in the post-reform period than in the pre-reform stretch.) While India is a rather more diverse country than is China, and there are parts of India (such as Kerala) in which life expectancy has risen considerably faster than in China, nevertheless for the two countries as a whole the comparison of general increase in life expectancy is entirely in favor of China. And yet China also had (as was discussed earlier in this chapter) the largest recorded
famine in history, when thirty million people perished in the famines that followed the failure of the Great Leap Forward, during 1958–1961. In contrast, India has not had a famine since independence. The prevention of famines and other disastrous crises is a somewhat different discipline from that of overall increase in average life expectancy and other achievements.

Inequality has an important role in the development of famines and other severe crises. Indeed, the absence of democracy is in itself an inequality—in this case of political rights and powers. But more than that, famines and other crises thrive on the basis of severe and sometimes suddenly increased inequality. This is illustrated by the fact that famines can occur even without a large—or any—diminution of total food supply, because some groups may suffer an abrupt loss of market power (through, for example, sudden and massive unemployment), with starvation resulting from this new inequality.
⁴³

Similar issues arise in understanding the nature of economic crises, such as the recent ones in East and Southeast Asia. Take, for example, the crises in Indonesia, in Thailand, and earlier on, even in South Korea. It may be wondered why should it be so disastrous to have, say, a 5 or 10 percent fall in gross national product in one year when the country in question has been growing at 5 or 10 percent
per year for decades
. Indeed, at the
aggregate
level this is not quintessentially a disastrous situation. And yet, if that 5 or 10 percent decline is not shared evenly by the population, and if it is heaped instead largely on the poorest part of the population, then that group may have very little income left (no matter what the overall growth performance might have been in the past). Such general economic crises, like famines, thrive on the basis of the Devil taking the hindmost. This is partly why arrangement for “protective security” in the form of social safety nets is such an important instrumental freedom (as discussed in
chapter 2
) and why political freedoms in the form of participatory opportunities as well as civil rights and liberties are ultimately crucial even for economic rights and for survival (as discussed in
chapter 6
and earlier in this chapter).

The issue of inequality is, of course, important also in the continuation of endemic poverty. But here too the nature of—and causal influences on—inequality may differ somewhat between the problem of persistent deprivation and that of sudden destitution. For
example, the fact that South Korea has had economic growth with relatively egalitarian income distribution has been extensively—and rightly—recognized.
⁴⁴
This, however, was no guarantee of equitable attention in a crisis situation in the absence of democratic politics. In particular, it did not place in position any regular social safety net, or any rapidly responding system with compensatory protection. The emergence of fresh inequality and unchallenged destitution can coexist with a previous experience of “growth with equity” (as it was often called).

This chapter has been mainly concerned with the problem of averting famines and preventing calamitous crises. This is one important part of the process of development as freedom, for it involves the enhancement of the security and protection that the citizens enjoy. The connection is both constitutive and instrumental. First, protection against starvation, epidemics, and severe and sudden deprivation is itself an enhancement of the opportunity to live securely and well. The prevention of devastating crises is, in this sense, part and parcel of the freedom that people have reason to value. Second, the process of preventing famines and other crises is significantly helped by the use of instrumental freedoms, such as the opportunity of open discussion, public scrutiny, electoral politics, and uncensored media. For example, the open and oppositional politics of a democratic country tends to force any government in office to take timely and effective steps to prevent famines, in a way that did not happen in the case of famines under nondemocratic arrangements—whether in China, Cambodia, Ethiopia or Somalia (as in the past), or in North Korea or Sudan (as is happening today). Development has many aspects, and they call for adequately differentiated analyses and scrutiny.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s classic book
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
, published in 1792, had various distinct claims within the general program of “vindication” that she outlined. The rights she spoke about included not only some that particularly related to the well-being of women (and the entitlements that were directly geared to promote that well-being), but also rights that were aimed mainly at the free agency of women.

Both these features figure in the agenda of women’s movements today, but it is, I think, fair to say that the agency aspects are beginning to receive some attention at last, in contrast to the earlier exclusive concentration on well-being aspects. Not long ago, the tasks these movements faced primarily involved working to achieve better treatment for women—a squarer deal. The concentration was mainly on women’s
well-being
—and it was a much needed corrective. The objectives have, however, gradually evolved and broadened from this “welfarist” focus to incorporate—and emphasize—the active role of women’s
agency
. No longer the passive recipients of welfare-enhancing help, women are increasingly seen, by men as well as women, as active agents of change: the dynamic promoters of social transformations that can alter the lives of
both
women and men.
¹

The nature of this shift in concentration and emphasis is sometimes missed because of the
overlap
between the two approaches. The active agency of women cannot, in any serious way, ignore the urgency of rectifying many inequalities that blight the well-being of women and subject them to unequal treatment; thus the agency role must be much concerned with women’s well-being also. Similarly, coming from the other end, any practical attempt at enhancing the well-being of women cannot but draw on the agency of women themselves in bringing about such a change. So the
well-being aspect
and the
agency aspect
of women’s movements inevitably have a substantial intersection. And yet they cannot but be different at a foundational level, since the role of a person as an “agent” is fundamentally distinct from (though not independent of) the role of the same person as a “patient.”
²
The fact that the agent may have to see herself as a patient as well does not alter the additional modalities and responsibilities that are inescapably associated with the agency of a person.

To see individuals as entities that experience and have well-being is an important recognition, but to stop there would amount to a very restricted view of the personhood of women. Understanding the agency role is thus central to recognizing people as responsible persons: not only are we well or ill, but also we act or refuse to act, and can choose to act one way rather than another. And thus we—women
and
men—must take responsibility for doing things or not doing them. It makes a difference, and we have to take note of that difference. This elementary acknowledgment, though simple enough in principle, can be exacting in its implications, both for social analysis and for practical reason and action.

The changing focus of women’s movements is, thus, a crucial
addition
to previous concerns; it is not a rejection of those concerns. The old concentration on the well-being of women, or, to be more exact, on the “ill-being” of women, was not, of course, pointless. The relative deprivations in the well-being of women were—and are—certainly present in the world in which we live, and are clearly important for social justice, including justice for women. For example, there is plenty of evidence that identifies the biologically “contrary”
(socially generated) “excess mortality” of women in Asia and North Africa, with gigantic numbers of “missing women”—“missing” in the sense of being dead as a result of gender bias in the distribution of health care and other necessities (on this see my essay “Missing Women” in
British Medical Journal
, March 1992).
³
That problem is unquestionably important for the well-being of women, and in understanding the treatment of women as “less than equal.” There are also pervasive indications of culturally neglected needs of women across the world. There are excellent reasons for bringing these deprivations to light and keeping the removal of these iniquities very firmly on the agenda.

But it is also the case that the limited role of women’s active agency seriously afflicts the lives of
all
people—men as well as women, children as well as adults. While there is every reason not to slacken the concern about women’s well-being and ill-being, and to continue to pay attention to the sufferings and deprivations of women, there is also an urgent and basic necessity, particularly at this time, to take an agent-oriented approach to the women’s agenda.

Perhaps the most immediate argument for focusing on women’s
agency
may be precisely the role that such an agency can play in removing the iniquities that depress the
well-being
of women. Empirical work in recent years has brought out very clearly how the relative respect and regard for women’s well-being is strongly influenced by such variables as women’s ability to earn an independent income, to find employment outside the home, to have ownership rights and to have literacy and be educated participants in decisions within and outside the family. Indeed, even the survival disadvantage of women compared with men in developing countries seems to go down sharply—and may even get eliminated—as progress is made in these agency aspects.
⁴

These different aspects (women’s earning power, economic role outside the family, literacy and education, property rights and so on) may at first sight appear to be rather diverse and disparate. But what they all have in common is their positive contribution in adding force to women’s voice and agency—through independence and empowerment. For example, working outside the home and earning an independent income tend to have a clear impact on enhancing the social standing of a woman in the household and the society. Her
contribution to the prosperity of the family is then more visible, and she also has more voice, because of being less dependent on others. Further, outside employment often has useful “educational” effects, in terms of exposure to the world outside the household, making her agency more effective. Similarly, women’s education strengthens women’s agency and also tends to make it more informed and skilled. The ownership of property can also make women more powerful in family decisions.

The diverse variables identified in the literature thus have a unified empowering role. This role has to be related to the acknowledgment that women’s power—economic independence as well as social emancipation—can have far-reaching impacts on the forces and organizing principles that govern divisions
within
the family and in society as a whole, and can, in particular, influence what are implicitly accepted as women’s “entitlements.”
⁵

To understand the process, we can start by noting that women and men have both
congruent
and
conflicting
interests that affect family living. Decision making in the family thus tends to take the form of pursuing cooperation, with some agreed solution—usually
implicit—
of the conflicting aspects. Such “cooperative conflict” is a general feature of many group relations, and an analysis of cooperative conflicts can provide a useful way of understanding the influences that operate on the “deal” that women get in family divisions. There are gains to be made by both parties through following implicitly agreed patterns of behavior. But there are many alternative possible agreements—some more favorable to one party than others. The choice of one such cooperative arrangement from the set of alternative possibilities leads to a particular distribution of joint benefits.
⁶
Conflicts between the partially disparate interests within family living are typically resolved through implicitly agreed patterns of behavior that may or may not be particularly egalitarian. The very nature of family living—sharing a home and leading joint lives—requires that the elements of conflict must not be explicitly emphasized (dwelling on conflicts will be seen as a sign of a “failed” union), and sometimes the deprived woman cannot even clearly assess the
extent of her relative deprivation. Similarly, the perception of who is doing how much “productive” work, or who is “contributing” how much to the family’s prosperity, can be very influential, even though the underlying “theory” regarding how “contributions” and “productivity” are to be assessed may rarely be discussed explicitly.