I may be too ideolological but i have always ridiculed Sen's notion of democracy as some form of neo liberal hogwash. democracy without working class rule appears in his writing as some abstarct freedom notion devoid of real substance. in an interview about food secrurity a year ago, ramsey clark said that if the US embargos egypt, they will only have for 90 days. iraq was embargoed and that killed hundred of thousands. the very agricultural trade system uproots subsitence farmers everywhere and hiehtens food insecurity. indeed next to a weapon of mass destruction, a food embargo by the west on some develoing country could wipe out thousands, democracy or not. what sen should have said is that western dmocracies use hunger to kill of a huge part of the world population.
Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This exchange, together with Jim's remark, remind us that there are different
kinds of democracies. Sen touched on this in comparing Keralla with other
states in India, but he never followed up by showing the antagonism means
neoliberalism and the kind of democracy that Ian and Jim suggest. A
contradiction that Srinivasan completely ignores.
Ian Murray wrote:
> ----- 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 posi! ts 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
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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