{"id":1369,"date":"2010-03-16T08:43:35","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T08:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localenterprise.wordpress.com\/?p=1028"},"modified":"2010-03-16T08:43:35","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T08:43:35","slug":"development-as-freedom-enterprise-as-a-key-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2010\/03\/16\/development-as-freedom-enterprise-as-a-key-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Development as Freedom &#8211; Enterprise as a Key?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last night Nobel prize winning Economist and philosopher <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/2001\/mar\/31\/society.politics\">Amartya Sen<\/a> gave an\u00a0address\u00a0with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.demos.co.uk\/events\/annual-lecture-2010\">Demos and the Indian High Commission<\/a>. \u00a0Sen has spent a lifetime studying poverty, its causes and how it may be alleviated. \u00a0His writing is dense, often supported with mathematical arguments. \u00a0He is not an easy read. \u00a0By his own admission he is a theorist and a researcher. \u00a0It is up to others to put his research into practice.<\/p>\n<p>So what does <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economics.harvard.edu\/faculty\/sen\/cv\/CV-Final.June2008.pdf\">Sen have to say<\/a>? \u00a0How is it relevant to enterprise? \u00a0Well here is my interpretation and, no doubt, gross simplification &#8211; tentatively offered&#8230;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Poverty is fundamentally rooted in injustice &#8211; the problem is not that there is not enough &#8211; but that it is not shared<\/li>\n<li>The challenge is to give more people the power that they need to play a positive and powerful role in markets; This means accessible and relevant processes to develop individual capabilities and power<\/li>\n<li>Development is a measure of the extent to which individuals have the capabilities to live the life that they choose. \u00a0It had little to do with standard economic measures such as GDP.<\/li>\n<li>Helping people to recognise choices and increase the breadth of choices\u00a0available\u00a0to them should be a key objective of development.<\/li>\n<li>Developing the capability and power of individuals provides a key to both development and freedom<\/li>\n<li>Development must be relevant to lives, contexts, and aspirations<\/li>\n<li>Development is about more than the alleviation of problems &#8211; stamping out anti social behaviour, teenage pregnancies, poor housing and so on.<\/li>\n<li>It is about helping people to become effective architects in shaping their own lives<\/li>\n<li>We need practices that value individual identity, avoid lumping people into &#8220;communities&#8221; they may not want to be part of, and promote a person&#8217;s freedom to make her own choices. \u00a0Promoting identification with &#8216;community&#8217; risks segregation and violence between communities<\/li>\n<li>Society must take a serious interest in the overall capabilities that someone has to lead the sort of life they want to lead, and\u00a0organise\u00a0itself to support the development and practice of those capabilities<\/li>\n<li>We should primarily develop an emphasis on individuals as members of the human race rather than as members of ethnic groups, religions or other &#8216;communities&#8217;. \u00a0Humanity matters.<\/li>\n<li>We need to make the\u00a0delivery\u00a0of public education, more equitable, more efficient and more accessible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Clearly\u00a0Sen is not arguing that everyone should start\u00a0their\u00a0own business. \u00a0Entrepreneurship\u00a0is on the agenda but not at the top of it.<\/p>\n<p>He\u00a0is\u00a0arguing for\u00a0enterprising\u00a0individuals and challenging us to develop our society in a way that encourages and supports them.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone for enterprise?<\/p>\n<div class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Posts\"><ul class=\"entry-meta\"><li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Olympic Gold &#8211; It all starts with a dream&#8230;.\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/08\/10\/olympic-gold-it-all-starts-with-a-dream\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Olympic Gold &#8211; It all starts with a dream&#8230;.<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"An imaginary open letter: To those who would &#8216;engage&#8217; us&#8230;\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/08\/09\/an-imaginary-open-letter-to-those-who-would-engage-us\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">An imaginary open letter: To those who would &#8216;engage&#8217; us&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Some thoughts on Best City outcomes\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/07\/05\/some-thoughts-on-best-city-outcomes\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Some thoughts on Best City outcomes<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Some Barriers to Engagement\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/06\/13\/some-barriers-to-engagement\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Some Barriers to Engagement<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Getting to Grips with Social Finance &#8211; FREE TRAINING\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/06\/12\/getting-to-grips-with-social-finance-free-training\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Getting to Grips with Social Finance &#8211; FREE TRAINING<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night Nobel prize winning Economist and philosopher Amartya Sen gave an\u00a0address\u00a0with Demos and the Indian High Commission. \u00a0Sen has spent a lifetime studying poverty, its causes and how it may be alleviated. \u00a0His writing is dense, often supported with mathematical arguments. \u00a0He is not an easy read. \u00a0By his own admission he is a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[36,38,39,49,65,68,110,151,158,200,209],"class_list":["post-1369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-enterprise","tag-community","tag-community-development","tag-community-engagement","tag-development","tag-enterprise","tag-enterprise-education","tag-inspiration","tag-policy","tag-power-2","tag-strategy","tag-training","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}