----- Original Message ----- From: "andie nachgeborenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Yes, the article was interesting. But even if there IS famine in India, it does not necessarily invalidate the Sen thesis. Sen's point is that in general, famines have been caused by lack of responsiveness to public needs, which is something undemocratic states are generally worse on than democratic ones. It's not an iron law that posits a mystic link; the mechanism is simple and obvious. I am very far from being an expert on famines or agricultural policy generally, but if Mike Davis' book on 19th century famines is reliable, the Sen thesis has a lot of empirical support. A single disconfirmation will not destroy it, particularly if these is good reason to think that for various reasons Indian democracy has been compromised, for example by corruption or structural adjustment policies. jks ====================== The excerpt below is, by far, the most troubling of the entire piece: T. N. Srinivasan, a professor of economics at Yale University, says that political freedoms, to work, need to be complemented by economic freedoms. Mr. Sen, he said, "doesn't emphasize enough the importance of free markets, trade and access to world markets and capital." The reason authoritarian China has grown more rapidly than democratic India, he said, is its embrace of economic liberalization." My guess is that Srinivasan thinks that 'free markets' will eventually undermine the authoritarian regimes of not only China, but the rest of the world. The authoritarian drift of the USA should make him think twice, as should the authoritarianism embedded in the corporate form of business organizations that are the result of putatively democratic lawmaking. Neoliberal economic theory is as anemic in it's theorizing of human freedoms as it is in theorizing the meanings of power. Sad and angering. Ian
