SO478 - week 7

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These are my notes from November 07 for SO478 at the London School of Economics for the 2017-2018 school year. I took this module as part of the one-year Inequalities and Social Science MSc program.

The usual disclaimer: all notes are my personal impressions and do not necessarily reflect the view of the lecturer.

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Capabilities, poverty and inequality

Readings

The Capability Approach by David A. Clark

On Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach. Wealth as a means of achieving something else & noting differing conversion rates for income/commodities into achievements, based on personal situation + cultural factors. Neither is utility (perceived happiness) a suficient consideration. Formulates a mapping from a “functioning” vector -> set of capability vectors. He refuses to establish an “objective” set of capabilities (could differ between contexts, like poverty vs well-being). Benefit of this approach: treats people as ends in themselves and not just means to an economic end—the goal of development should be expansion of capabilities rather than economic growth (which should be a means, at most). Weaknesses: doesn’t really address the subjectivity factor (people will disagree about what capabilities should be valued); there isn’t always data to assess. Also mentions Martha Nussbaum’s attempts to build on the CA: draws on Aristotle to develop a list of “central human capabilities”, whereas Sen argues for a more democratic approach to building this list.

The idea of “adequate income” which allocates income acc to an individual’s conversion rate, which is ofc difficult to objectively quantify (people are incentivised to lie about it), so you end up giving some people more than they need (which is unfair) + end up spending more overall (though this really only matters in relation to the total quantity of money & how it affects individual capability assessments). This is, incidentally, probably my biggest problem with basic income proposals: you’re trying to extend the reach of quantification (i.e., commodification) when you should really be DECOMMODIFYING by introducing more public services that don’t rely on income. (Longer post on that forthcoming.)

Collective Capabilities, Culture, and Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom by Peter Evans

No notes for this yet.

Assessing global poverty and inequality by Ingrid Robeyns

No notes for this yet.

Lecture

This lecture was given by Naila Kabeer, Professor of Gender and Development in the Gender Studies & International Development departments at LSE.

• we should recall the historical context of Sen’s capabilities framework: as a response to traditional welfare economists
  • where the focus is on utility (pain/pleasure), as revealed through spending money (assumed to be done rationally, in order to maximise utility)
  • Samuelson thought that the best quantitative way of measuring utility was by looking at purchasing power
  • thus using spending was seen as a proxy for utility
  • this led to an outlook where the goal of society was seen as maximising utility by increasing wealth
• Sen’s critique of this: pleasure/pain is too reductive; instead, we should consider what each one of us wants to achieve in life
  • he thought of capabilities as means to achieve particular functionings
  • for him, a fundamental weakness of welfare economics is that it ignores the distinction between positive and negative freedoms, or virtuous/vicious sources of happiness
  • thus that framework doesn’t allow for discrimination redress if the oppressed are “happy”
  • (though ofc your views on yourself and what you think of as “good” are products of your environment—basically, your preferences are produced through your life experiences)
  • after all, the legitimacy of inequality rests on the “consent” of the governed; inequality thrives when the oppressors make allies out of the oppressed
  • he establishes the concept of a conversion factor (from capabilities to functionings), which can vary for personal (disability, cognitive, age, sex, health), environmental (infrastructure, climate, remoteness), and social (public policy, social norms) reasons
• important to recognise that Sen is not in the Marxist tradition; instead, he’s a fairly good, pluralist liberal
  • recall his initial paper, Equality of What? from 1979, where his answer to the titular question was basically “capabilities” (without being too specific)
  • his personal research context: he was focused on poverty in South Asia, and he wanted to distinguish between “basic” and “other” capabilities in order to define the “very poor”
    • you can see the basic capabilities as preconditions for others (necessary for survival)
    • he doesn’t actually propose this list himself—he assumes it’ll be deliberated upon democratically
  • Martha Nussbaum builds on this framework but takes it a step farther by proposing a normative list
    • her reasoning: it’s important because not all capabilities are equally “good”; having such a list is useful as a minimum set that governments can endorse/enforce
    • Sen’s criticism of her list is that we should have different lists for different purposes
  • one practical implication of Sen’s framework is the development of the HDI (as a multidimensional indicator of wellbeing)
• critiques of Sen:
  • too ethically individualistic (though Sen does recognise, to an extent, that individual preferences etc are culturally shaped)
  • otoh, he doesn’t really go into how corporations shape our preferences via clever marketing
  • too focused on the disadvantaged end at the expense of the advantaged end
    • for ex, we could view the unique capabilities of rich people as important for understanding inequality
    • philanthrophy, ability to influence elections, having someone drive you around etc
    • we could extend the capabilities framework to allow us to better understand the privileges of the wealthy (by looking at the capabilities they have in common)
• on a collective capabilities framework
  • designed in recognition of the fact that taking on structures of inequality is beyond individual capabilities
  • there’s a dialectical relationship: structures can affect our capabilities but we can also change the structures

Seminar

• Q: is the capabilities framework useful? given that it was developed before inequalities debate took off
  • when I read it, being divorced from the original context & having already absorbed post-Sen ideas on egalitarianism, i already agree with the moral objections to the libertarian view
  • it actually paints quite a bad picture of the economic landscape at the time—the fact that his really basic arguments NEEDED to be made (because he thought there were those who might not readily agree)
• his ideas might be useful for understanding inequality, but it’s harder to turn them into something quantitative
• problems with the deliberative approach: draw on fraser, doesnt it just reproduce power structures
  • plus how do you deal with local cultures deciding on things (like arranged marriages) that others would disagree on
  • the deliberative approach might conceal individuals’ choices cus decided by dominant factors (child marriage, FGM etc)
• incidentally, while trying to think through critical theories of Sen I found this paper: Sen, Marx and justice: a critique
  • “the overall problem with Sen’s use of Marx regarding justice is that the injustices Sen speaks of are systemically created by capitalism. If Sen or any other theorist of justice wants to use Marx then they must start with that fundamental fact. They of course cannot because they assume justice can be achieved within capitalism whereas for Marx it was only fully achievable with its abolition”
• we should view sen’s contribution as a beginning, since quant-only approaches have failed
• can the capabilities framework serve as a measurement of ineq?
  • no, cus remember dialectical rel between ineq & pov
  • depending on how rising ineq works, can necessitate raising the poverty line
  • assumes a fairly static model and thus assumes lack of ineq
  • otoh, maybe we can use the capabilities approach to understand how much inequality is too much
• Sen’s critique of liberal utilility ideas are good; he recognises that revealed prefs are shaped by larger structural factors
  • and yet his solution—deliberative democracy—doesnt actually fix the problem, it just pushes it one step back
• my thoughts: capabilities bear on inequality cus being able to access goods etc given equal distribution is a cap
  • the rich have ability to compel poor to sell labour, so capability of not labouring is granted
  • you have to take a normative approach where full equality is the comparison point
  • access to information & education (esp about ones own situation) could also be a capability
  • false consciousness, misunderstanding economic reality is a functioning?

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