Sen, A (2001). Development as Freedom. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Chapter 1.

The author conceptualizes development as ‘the gap between an exclusive concentration on economic wealth and a broader focus on the lives we can lead’ (p.14) emphasizing that the theory of development goes well beyond wealth accumulation and gross national product growth. The chapter examines the relationship between development and freedom, the way in which freedom is a component of development and an extensive view of ‘freedom’ encompassing both opportunities that people have and processes that allow for ‘freedom’ of decisions.

The main arguments of the author is that development should be assessed by ‘freedom’ of accessibility to factors such as social opportunities, health care, clean water, economic security, civil rights and political freedom. Lack of accessibility means ‘unfreedom’. Development therefore should mean that people can live the lives they want to live and precisely, how can a nation say in all entirety that it has ‘freedom’ when its citizens cannot afford the very basic necessities of life or fulfill the rights they are entitled to?

Sen goes on further to compare different views of poverty in both developing and developed nation by analyzing ‘freedoms’ through values, poverty and inequality, income and mortality, markets and freedom, tradition and culture. The author sees the process of development beyond economic growth or physical and human capital and concludes by linking the understanding of a broad view of the development process to the substantive ‘freedoms’ of people.

Sen’s write up contains intriguing views but he hasn’t mentioned what justifies his classification into these ‘freedoms’ i.e. experience of developing countries, factual historical evidence or how far ‘freedom’ has progressed within each context he identified. His definition is quite different from Rapley’s in which Rapley describes development as “more concerned with flexibility and adaptability” (Rapley 2007 pp 5) and so raises a question. Can development be measured only by individual happiness without economic growth and stability? Happiness, in my opinion is geared more towards Rapley’s definition and should be adapted into the process of economic growth.

Willis, K. (2005) Theories and Practices of Development. London. Routledge. p. 32-42.

Willis’ chapter 2 of theories and practices of development analyses development theories and practices and how these theories were attached to the economic, social and political theories that developed in Europe from the 18th century. Willis’s interpretation raises some interesting facts about historical development of theories and she divides her study into various theories.

The classical economists such as David Ricardo, an advocate of free trade and Adam Smith, in his famous book, Wealth of Nations ‘responded to the trade focus of economic policy at that time’ (p.32) when trade was a major factor of economic growth. Here, protectionist measures such as high tariffs were highly used by merchants.

Willis goes on to say Adam Smith was not in favour of this form of regulation and that it was harmful to the country’s economic growth. Instead, greater focus on production and division of labour which will be regulated by the ‘invisible hand of the market’ (p.33).

The Great depression of the 1930’s and other economic happenings gave rise to Keynes argument of the free market not necessarily a positive force but government intervention in the promotion of economic growth while postwar reconstruction period was a time to reflect on the economic crises that occurred at that time and provide solutions to their re-occurrence. This led to the creation of the Bretton woods institutions to assist in the promotion of ‘stable economic growth within a capitalist system’ (p. 36)

Willis describes the linear stages theory and makes emphasis on Rostow, the American economist and political theorist’s stages of Economic growth to development. Here, development was seen as a state where a large number of the population could afford to spend largely on consumer products and development was viewed as modern, moving from agricultural societies to an industrial economy. While she tries to decipher early theoretical ideas, Willis has not made clear linkages between some of these theories and how they have come to evolve in economic debates and discussions over time.

Chang, H., and Ilene G. (2004) ‘Reclaiming Development from the Washington Consensus’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 27(2), 274-291.

The fundamental of this article is to correct the notion that there is no alternative to the Washington Consensus. The authors argue that ‘neoliberal policies have failed to achieve their goals in developing world’ (p. 274) and so discuss the major development myths for justifying neoliberal policies that have been harmful to developing world and perhaps as a complacency to the reader, possible alternatives to these policies.

These myths, evaluated individually, describe how these policies have lacked credibility. Myth 1; In contrast to the neoliberal policy success, the reality is that the policy has not promoted its main aim of economic growth. Myth 2; Developed countries gained success through free market policies whereas records claim they relied upon interventionist policies for development. Myth 3; Only neoliberal policies can succeed in today’s global environment whereas in fact there is evidence of ‘continuing institutional and policy divergence across national boundaries’ (p. 277) Myth 4; Discipline imposed by international institutions to keep them honest whereby placing policy making authority in the hands of these organizations. Myth 5; The East Asian model cannot be replicated when in fact most developed countries utilized this model. Myth 6; Developing countries should imitate the Anglo American model of capitalism which fared poorly in the economic boom of the 1990’s.

The authors went ahead to put forward alternative policies for faster economic development which includes the financial system providing adequate finance quantities for investment projects at appropriate prices, enforcing strict laws on new foreign loans incurred by domestic borrowers, defocusing on budget balance and maximizing FDI potentials to promote economic and industrial development in developing countries

While arguing for these policies, it will be sensible to note that economies are different and there can be no ‘best practice’ policy that everyone should use (Chang 2003). Policies for development should not be ‘fixed’ but depend on stages of development of a developing nation and other factors such as resource capacity, economic, political and social conditions.