Amartya Sen's Capability Approach and Its Application in the Hdrs

The three principal elements have become identified in practice within the institutional model of welfare. “The key elements are social protection, and the provision of welfare services on the basis of right.” (Spicker2014)

Woodard (2005) demonstrated that egalitarianism is a condition that esteems distributive fairness in society in terms of property, economy, politics and public institutions. That means population must have equal amounts of public welfare, allowance, liberty, and political rights to maximize their life quality. On the other hand, Nathan (1983) discussed that egalitarianism’s idea is about giving priority to disadvantageous persons in a society and contribute them opportunities of education and employment. The society should include people such as elders, indigenous groups, handicapped persons, immigrant, single parents, and people who live under low socioeconomic status. The political systems let the citizens share national resources and public services such as information and transportations That would make smaller gaps between rich and poor (Miller, 2005; Landesman, 1983). Therefore, egalitarian society could be defined as a society that seeks equity among population, over the individual social position giving access in obtaining wealth, education, employment, political rights, civil rights, and public

This is important because inequality causes unrest and brings about interminable turmoil which can eventually lead to a collapse of a regime or a state. If every human being is given equal opportunities then the outcome after those opportunities were presented, whether it was success of failure, fully rests upon the individual’s shoulders. In case of failure, the government or any other individual would not be held accountable.

According to the World Bank, from 1993 to 1998, poverty rate has reduced by 14 percent in developing countries, similar to about 107 million people. This may result from receiving foreign investment that plays an important role in local economy growth. For example, the proportion of population living in poverty in India decreased by half in the two decades, from the 1970s to 1990s, while the number of Chinese in poverty declined by approximately 210 million during twenty-one years, from 1978 to 1999 (Healey 2008). In other words, the standard of living is improving due to the benefits of international economic activities.

Social inequality can practically be made apparent at any moment of someone’s life – whether at work or school amongst peers or simply watching the news in the morning. According to Dalton Conley, social inequality is narrowly defined as “a condition in which a difference in wealth, power, prestige, or status based on nonnatural conventions exist” (2017 p.241). Moreover, social inequality is a process whereby society can determine how a class of people is expected to coexist within predetermined social, political, and economic boundaries. The affected class will live within the predefined constraints, and the affected class will then pass the predefined constraints on to future generations. It is imperative to understand that social inequality is a result of social stratification, which according to

The specifics of policy choices are an important issue, and these choices can be analyzed thoroughly and theoretically. Economic inequality is the difference in numerous measures of economic security between individuals of a group, groups in a population, or countries. Economic inequality can also be referred to as income inequality. Bartels describes issues about economic inequality including how poorly some groups are represented. The poor are barely represented, if at all, because their lack of funds and resources usually only influence the majority of politicians to ignore the poor. When considering the poorer population, representatives do not even bother to consider the poor because some members of congress or senators might not believe that those certain low income groups do not have enough money to be acknowledged. There is a definite political unfairness because of how unevenly certain income groups are

A new type of inequality has crept over us in the recent past. It is the way in which government shows bias to one group of citizens over another. These economic disparities strengthen the cause of those who have against those who do not have. They relate specifically to the unequal distribution of resources, education and income potential. Those members of our society who have been minimized have much less political voice and therefore can expect to continue to receive less in the way of equal treatment and equal access to services and education.

Secondly, the issue of discrimination in income inequality stereotypes and characterizes individual performance and ability based on the average habits of the group to which they belong. People have varying mental, physical, and aesthetic talents that can aid or be a hindrance to their standard of living. Additionally, an individual’s wealth is based on how many factors of production (FOP) one owns thus, the greater the FOP owned, the greater the ability to amass riches. Unequal distribution of fortune also averts the inclusive growth pattern that Latin America is experiencing. Third, income inequality goes hand in hand with unequal access to useful services such as education, health and political power. Finally, inequality in Latin America

As long as humans are born into positions which enhance or diminish their individual abilities to exercise rights in free pursuit of their desires, a fundamental inequality of liberty persists. Civil rights, comprising basic freedoms of speech, property, and contract, are often misunderstood as being power-agnostic and the shared rights of humans in society, but the power of those rights is drastically affected by the social and economic power of the person who wields them. Furthermore, the capitalist class system and the unequal exercise of rights are mutually reinforcing. The existence of vast status differences between capitalists and workers makes the conferring of nominally equal liberal rights inherently unequal, and the unequal ability to exercise those rights cements the class system in place. This is true of any number of dichotomous or multidimensional power imbalances between individuals or groups such as race, gender, or culture. Human beings also vary vastly in their innate personal characteristics. These characteristics include not only a spectrum of physical abilities and requirements, but also a diversity of values and desires which go far beyond the liberal economic ideal of maximization (Sen 20). There are therefore many ways in

It forms a legitimate engagement with a system that promises “the American dream” but is in fact much more negative and exploitive in practise(Stiglitz,2011).Injustice is here shaped via an economic redistribution and exchanges equality with the promise of efficiency/individual freedom. The state becomes a negative instrument as it interferes while markets become justified because of its ability to reward individuals (Hayek,1976).These rewards are however not fairly distributed and are often defined only by what the market is valuing as skilful. Drawing from patriarchy, racist and class structures one could suppose that certain groups will be excluded from equality of opportunity as they are viewed as less “skilful” due to prejudices(Hayek,1976).Just because equality exists under the law, does not mean it exist in practise. This concept denies full equal recognition and misses the fact that human actions are in fact connected to socialization rather than human nature which is a crucial for more optimistic outcome(Fraser,1995). Hayek(1976) draws the problem toward individual capabilities to coordinate(or not coordinate) their actions as inequality is neither deliberate or an undeliberate process and therefore individuals cannot

Economic development can be defined generally as involving an improvement in economic welfare, measured using a variety of indices, such as the Human Development Index (HDI). A developing country is described as a nation with a lower standard of living, underdeveloped industrial base, and a low HDI relative to other countries. There are several factors which may have the effect of limiting economic development in such countries. Factors such as these include: primary product dependency, the savings gap and political instability.

Amartya Sen presented a path breaking argument for the measurement of poverty. Capability school of thought presented a multi dimensional approach for the measurement of poverty. According to his capability theory, it is not having the capability that causes and brings about poverty. For instance, he suggests that urban poor are deprived because they do not have the capacity to produce adequate incomes to consumer adequate food and nutrition and to make informed decisions and act in such a way that would ameliorate their living standards. Therefore, following Sen’s capability theory, the important elements in describing the urban poverty entail, one’s health, gender, ethnic status, nutritional and educational (Sen, 1992).

Amartya Sen defines economic development in terms of personal freedom, freedom to choose from a range of options. While economic growth may lead to an increase in the purchasing power of people, if the country has a repressed economy, there is lack of choice and hence personal freedom in restricted. Hence once again growth has taken place without any development. While economic growth may result in an improvement in the standard of living of a relatively small proportion of the population whilst the majority of the population remains poor. It is how the economic growth is distributed amongst the population that determines the level of development.

The questions are raised as what and how the wealth is distributed or allocated among societies. Countries with similar average incomes can differ substantially when it comes to people’s quality of life such as social justice, access to education and health care, job opportunities, availability of clean air and safe drinking water, the threat of crime, freedom of speech, life expectancy, birth-death control, identity, culture, conservation, equal opportunities, environmental change. Development is important as it covers a wide range process involving cultural, economic, environmental, political, social and technological change of a country. Regarding goals and means of development, recent United Nations documents emphasize on human development measured by life expectancy, adult literacy, access to all three levels of education as well as people‘s average income which is a necessary condition of their freedom of choice. In other words, human development incorporates all aspects of individuals’ well -being from their health status to their economic and political freedom. The Human Development Report 1996 of UNDP focuses on development as the end and economic growth a

Society holds many structures that mould human performance and produce opportunities for some, but inequalities for others (Morrall, 2009). These structures in society are organized by the hierarchies of class, ethnicity and gender (Crossman, 2016). Due to having a society based on hierarchies, social inequalities are inevitable. Social inequality refers to the ways in which a group or individual of a certain social position may receive unequal opportunities or distribution of ‘goods’ such as education, income, living conditions and healthcare (Walker, 2009). These unequal opportunities may be given to someone because of their ethnicity, gender, income, religion or social class (Walker, 2009). For example, people in a high social class will be able to pay for their children to go to a good private school for a good education, whereas lower-class or working class people will struggle to afford the same education.