Comments on: Sen’s Development as Freedom

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 11:39:55 +0000

James, (1) “Bad choices by stupid people” was a fair and reasonable gloss on borderline racist comments by dumb right-wingers. They conveyed the sentiment, I didn’t. (2) Read the book for yourself – I’m not your research assistant.

By: James

James — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 10:58:37 +0000

Chris, if I can pull you away from shrieking about ‘righties’ (and you moan about ad hominem comments!)for a moment, I’ve a comment and a question. The comment is, I find your ‘stupid people making bad choices’ infinitely more offensive than the original ‘people making stupid choices.’ I can identify myself among the people who make stupid choices that lower their income, health, both at the time of decision later on, but not among your (quite frankly offensive and dehumanising) ‘stupid people’. My question is, does Sen comment on the direction in which the life expectancy of the groups he talks about is going? I have a professional interest in the answer, as I am involved in the Surestart programme in London, which among other things is trying to increase the use of breastfeeding and thus raise the nutritional bar for very young children. (It was at a ‘shocking’, seeing as you like the word so much, level to begin with. We’ve doubled it in our area in the last 18 months.)So – how are blacks doing in the US compared with say, thirty years ago? Where are the numbers going? Up? Down?

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 09:22:45 +0000

Thanks Zizka – quite close to my own sentiments on this. Though we aren’t a Brit site you know, but one whose members come from the US, the UK, Ireland, Hungary and Australia and live in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and France. (“Aha!” say the trolls, “France! We knew they must be in there somewhere!”

By: infamouse

infamouse — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:02:42 +0000

“I recalled near the beginning of this long thread that American Indians are across the board the most disadvantaged ethnic group in America, and no-one gives a damn.” Or it could be that not many people (myself included) really know much about the situation regarding Native Americans, but it clearly makes you feel morally superior to other people to think that. “The possibility has been mentioned that “stupid people make bad choices.” “ You’ll have to talk to Chris Bertram about that one. “And certainly we can’t be Stalinists; the message of Orwell is that nice people should be passive all the time.” This is an Orwell I have never encountered. He/she must be different from George Orwell. “So y’all just oughta let the MBF’s ruin every thread you ever put up.” Yes, because dissent and an actual attempt at debate just ruins everything.

By: JP

JP — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 06:35:13 +0000

I find it amusing that Mr. Thorley Winston is accusing a past presidient of the econometric society of making basic mistakes Yes indeed. Oh, I don’t know, could it be that TW’s evaluation of Sen’s econometrics may have been just a “teensy bit political”?

By: Zizka

Zizka — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 05:48:49 +0000

This thread can serve as a sort of metaphor of the contemporary American political process. (Yes, I know that this is a Brit site). Can a bunch of nice academic liberals compete with a bunch of shit-flinging iron-butt trolls? Is it possible to have intelligent discussions about a book with stubborn, ignorant people who haven’t read the book? I’ll leave the answer to the reader. I came here with two things in mind. First: “I really want to read this book. What do the CT people have to say about it? Almost every one of them knows more than I do about economics.” Second: “I wonder if Sen has acquired a lynch mob yet?” The second question has been answered. In my opinion, CT should ban the moronic brownshirt fucks. But of course, that would be Stalinist. And certainly we can’t be Stalinists; the message of Orwell is that nice people should be passive all the time. So y’all just oughta let the MBF’s ruin every thread you ever put up.

By: Curtis Crawford

Curtis Crawford — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 05:25:20 +0000

Two different issues have been confused in this thread: (1) why black American men live shorter lives than Chinese and Kerala men who are poorer, and (2) whether inequality of wealth and income in the US is excessive. On (2) I believe it is, and that Americans would be better off in many ways, from the distribution of health to the distribution of power, if the inequality were less. I mention that without trying to prove it here. On (1) I would like to see an attempt to evaluate factors that might contribute to the result. The possibility has been mentioned that “stupid people make bad choices.” On average, do black American men have lower IQs that Chines and Kerala men? Other things equal, does a lower IQ correlate with shorter lifespans? Did Sen investigate that possibility?

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 05:02:44 +0000

Okay first off this is a complicated issue; and Sen’s work can be questioned on a number of grounds, unfortunately none of the ones put forward here really number amongst them. The technical aspects of links between nutrition and poverty from this angle are covered in SR Osmani’s “Nutrition and Poverty” and the excellent collection of essays edited by KR Krishnaswamy “Poverty and Income Distribution” which explore these topics at some length. The whole issue about consumption baskets is a valid one but as far as possible differences can be adjusted for and by large have been, any discrepancies that remain are statistically small ones; so I doubt whether Sen’s comparison will suddenly become flawed because African Americans are all eating fried chicken while Malayalees have fantastically healthy diets or sthg. It should also be remembered that such large variations in life expectancy can’t be put down to dietary patterns alone; as much of the rest of India has similar intakes to Keralites, but only a few other states do as well – one needs to ask that if the Indian diet was so much healthier than African Americans why morbidity rates are so much higher in other Indian states like Madhya Pradesh or Orissa. Obviously diet is not the most important factor at work here. Also the implicit reason is that for some reason Indian and Malayalee food is much healthier than what African Americans eat – why this should be so is not explained it is simply asserted. The WFP had a conference earlier this year that has had fairly large-sampled surveys on family nutrition and infant eating patterns across various states; these reveal some disturbing trends such as the high level of anaemia and vitamin deficiency amongst those under 5 and pregnant women and also the relatively high morbidity rates. Even states praised for their HDI performance like Kerala and Tamil Nadu do badly while some northern ones do better; no clear patter emerges as to what can explain these difference as it depends on a number of complex factors most of them to do with local state policy, agrarian structure, wage and income distributions and ecological conditions. Diet again was not found to be a significant factor. It should be kept in mind that Sen is just extending the work he did a decade ago with Jean Dreze on comparing more progressive states like Kerala with more backward BIMARU ones in northern India; while he chooses to place a heavy stress on state developmental policy; he has ignored other important factors like the different nature of caste politics, a more matriarchal pattern of family structures and rather different historical integration into the regional agricultural economy which are also important explanatory variables. As for the reason why he uses Kerala as an example; it should be quite obvious: apart from the fact that he is an Indian and heavily influenced by developments in this country; the so-called ‘Kerala miracle’ has attracted the attention of numerous social scientists for its ability to combine poor economic growth with high levels of social development; explaining this paradox has become a sort of cottage industry amongst South Asianists and everybody refers to it in the sphere of poverty/development economics in Asia. Being one of the pioneers in the field and who has done the most work on this, it would be surprising if Sen left out copious references to Kerala in any of his major works on the issue.

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 02:49:16 +0000

I recalled near the beginning of this long thread that American Indians are across the board the most disadvantaged ethnic group in America, and no-one gives a damn. The various ethnic groups mentioned here since then have not included the American Indians. Let them rot. Sen is Master of my old college, Trinity College Cambridge, which is not especially PC, frankly. The Queen chooses the Master. He is far more popular than either Hodgkin or Huxley were, two ineffectual but nice people, though the Fields Medal winner who directly preceded him, Atiyah, was very popular. I’d think one reason he chose India is because of his body of work on India. Scholars do that.

By: anderson

anderson — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 02:10:46 +0000

vinteuil, blacks even have lower test scores and grades than whites of similar income levels, even in the same schools and classrooms. It’s very perplexing. There’s a test score hierarchy: Asians, then whites, then hispanics, then blacks. There are some very controversial books on teh matter.

By: Vinteuil

Vinteuil — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 01:32:44 +0000

Way back when, before people started spitting venom, Chris Bertram stated that “the difference in life expectancy remains even comparing black and white with similar income levels.” This leaves me puzzled. Doesn’t it suggest that the operative factor here is not economic inequality, but rather some subset of the many other factors that set black and white Americans apart from one another (whatever those factors may be, and whomsoever’s “fault” they may be)? Perhaps I just missed the boat here. I thought the whole issue was supposed to be the relationship between economic inequality and health outcomes.

By: infamouse

infamouse — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 01:21:25 +0000

I must say I’m even more confused this time. Chris Bertram, to whom are you referring? If I used the term “out of wedlock”, it is because the term “illegitimate” is cruel. No child is “illegitimate”. Signed, A slightly conservative (“Don’t have kids out of wedlock!”,) slightly liberal(“Gay marriage? Go for it!”) chica who is slightly confused.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 00:24:05 +0000

The funny thing is, that I was undecided whether to blog first about this passage or another one that the righties would have loved about the importance of the freedom to truck and barter. Had I only chosen differently I’m sure Thorley and Infamouse would have been hailing Sen as a genius … I’ll probably use that passage in a couple of days, meanwhile, a friendly hint guys: the phrase “out of wedlock” is something of a giveaway. If you want to sneak up on us pinko liberals and catch us out from time to time, you’d be wise to be a bit less, er, conspicuous.

By: infamouse

infamouse — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 00:20:46 +0000

sorry, that sounds like the Atkins diet. I know what you mean though. There’s a very popular local grocery store chain in my area that has a special separate branch for the innercity area. The whiter branch is sparkling with lots of service and pretty produce, the blacker branch is hella cheap and hella awful. It’s depressing. Unfortunately, a friend who works for this company told me that when they tried to improve one of the innercity branches, the people stopped coming and it went out of business. It’s cheaper to buy a .99 carton of Ring Dings than it is to purchase a bag of apples. Essentially, the people in the area got priced out of the store. That’s why the produce in that store you saw looks like crap. They can sell it for cheaper. A junkfood tax coupled with ridding ourselves of agriculture subsidies would make healthy food more affordable for the poor, who are more susceptible to obesity, no matter their skin color.

By: sorry

sorry — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 23:46:57 +0000

Many years ago I wondered if there was an active conspiracy in this area to depress the development of Blacks, and to kill them off early. This speculation came from visiting a few grocery stores in black neighborhoods. Prepared foods. Boxed stuff with sodium and fat. Sad produce. Lots of sausages and low end cuts of meat. It was disgraceful. Try looking for yourself.