Development as Freedom Seminar Schedule by Huang and Kim

 ACTIVITY 1: INDIA VS. CHINA (20 min)

“The Lee Thesis,” originally attributed to the former prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, maintains that harsher political systems — ones that deny some basic civil liberties and political rights — are worth having for promoting economic development. While there is little evidence to show this is definitely true, civil liberties and political rights do not always have a direct relationship with economic development, though. Compare India and China. To give some background, China has a higher standard of living, but India has more robust political liberties. 

China has a GDP of 14.34 USD vs. India has a GDP of 2.87 USD. 

China's life expectancy is 73.5 vs. India's life expectancy is 64.4. 

China’s literacy rate is 96.8% vs. India’s literacy rate is 77.7%... 

HOWEVER,

China essentially has a dictatorship (Constitution change that made Xi president for life in 2019) vs. India has the largest democracy in the world. 

Which country should be considered as having greater freedoms?


DISCUSSION 1

  • Agency

    • Alexis: Farmers in India protesting for government involvement in agriculture through subsidized 

    • Tara:  Focus on capabilities could potential harm democratic processes

  • Daniel K: Sen’s 5 Values conflated with happiness when it is not necessarily the case


BREAK


ACTIVITY 2: RAWLS VS. SEN (20 min)

Assume you are an individual in a developing nation post world war II. Your nation has very few resources and very little capital to work with. Which model of development would you want: utilitarianism, libertarianism( or Rawlsian), or development in the form of interdependence of freedoms given by Sen? Why?  

  • Utilitarianism: focuses on the outcomes and therefore ignores intrinsic values of rights and liberties

  • Libertarianism: focuses on procedural rights but completely ignores outcomes

  • Interconnected freedoms Vs. Rawls: liberty should not be given a priority but merely one of the substantive or instrumental freedoms to be taken into consideration. 

DISCUSSION 2

  • Interconnectedness of economics vs. political freedom

  • Olivia, Thomas: dependency of economy on government form vs vice versa 

  • Jess: specific example of legalizing marijuana and whether or not that would constitute development 

  • Amari, Daniel: Democracy

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gero - Final Farewell Blog Post Fifteen

        The concept of the private government of the modern workplace as described by Anderson in Chapter 2 of   Private Government   enforces a double jeopardy on women in particular. In her paper “Unstrapping the Straitjacket of Preference” Anderson asserts that “bargaining theory recommends that, if women are to improve their situation, they ought to seek employment outside of the home” (page 35). Women’s situation is also improved as work allows women to create an identity outside of the home through joining larger group identities (page 36). Putting this dilemma in the language of   Private Government , women suffer under the patriarchal private governments of the home, where fathers and husbands exert arbitrary and unaccountable power over them. To create identity, they must then join additional private government outside of the home and in the workplace.             While many...
Read more

Mehra - Blog Post "Lucky Number 13"

  In “Unstrapping the Straightjacket of ‘Preference;’ a Comment on Amartya Sen’s Contributions to Philosophy and Economics”, Elizabeth Anderson expands Sen’s suspicion of ‘preference’ as the function of rational decision making. In attempting to fill Sen’s lacuna regarding rational judgments and building off his prior work, Anderson puts forth “ The Priority of Identity to Rational Principle : what principle of choice it is rational to act on depends on a prior determination of personal identity, of who one is” (30). Identity advances the force of collective agency. According to Anderson, “In taking up the perspective of collective agency, the parties to an n-person prisoner’s dilemma can see their actions as jointly advancing a desirable goal even though none of their actions taken in isolation has a positive marginal impact on that goal” (30). Identity with part of a group compels them to take membership in collective action and advance shared goals. Identity is messy, nuanced, a...
Read more

Discussion Leader Sign Up

  Discussion Leader Sign Up (“bb” = before break; “ab” = after break)   March 25: Brettschneider   When the State … (bb): Wills March 25: Brettschneider When the State … (ab): Josh   April 1: Brettschneider (bb): Brettschneider April 1: Brettschneider (ab): Tara   April 8: Scalia et al (bb): Olivia April 8: Scalia et al (ab): Jess   April 15: Adam Smith (bb):Cam April 15: Adam Smith (ab):Daniel K   April 22: Sen (bb): Amari April 22: Sen (ab): Daniel H   April 29: Anderson “Unstrapping…” (bb): April 29: Anderson “Unstrapping…” (ab):   May 4: Anderson Private Government (bb): Alexis May 4: Anderson Private Government (ab): Sarah   May 6: Anderson (bb): Anderson
Read more