The Debate On Amartya Sen Continues

The debate continues in our para-parliament, with Mint today editorializing on the “relevance of Amartya Sen.” This is in the context of his latest book The Idea of Justice (see earlier post). The editors conclude that Sen’s ideas are “full of imprecision and relativity.”

Hayek is indispensable to this debate. And Chandra has provided the most appropriate quote:

Justice has meaning only as a rule of human conduct, and no conceivable rules for the conduct of individuals supplying each other with goods and services in a market economy would produce a distribution which could be meaningfully described as just or unjust. Individuals might conduct themselves as justly as possible, but as the results for separate individuals would be neither intended nor foreseeable by others, the resulting state of affairs could neither be called just nor unjust.

Is it “just” that Sachin Tendulkar earns so much? Or Shah Rukh Khan? Is it “unjust” that housemaids are poor? As are teachers, professors, and journalists.

The welfare statists, led by Amartya Sen, want “distributive justice.” To them The Market is unjust. They call upon The State to correct these perceived injustices.

My point is this: Amartya Sen’s “vision” is an exact replica of Jawaharlal Nehru’s “socialistic pattern of society.” The idea is an economic egalitarianism achieved by State force. This is the very same vision that India has chased for over 60 years – and which lies in tatters.

The Hayekian vision is of a Great & Open Society: a society of numberless individuals interacting freely in markets, exchanging goods and services peacefully among themselves. This is a “catallaxy,” not a “community.” The individuals who engage in market exchanges usually do not even know one another – and it doesn’t matter.

There cannot be economic equality in such a Great Society. As in a free forest, where there are tall trees, short grasses, bushes and shrubs, and vines, so too with the Great Society. Just as each living creature finds a “niche” in the jungle, so too with The Market – we all find “niches.” This is the “social division of labour.” Rewards are uncertain for all. The socialists and welfare statists want to replace a freely growing forest with a landscape of uniformly trimmed hedges - with their Supreme Leader doing the trimming.

Further, the Great Society is one in which there is Competition. There are rewards for those who serve their customers best; and there are punishments for those who do it the worst. Without this “minimum pressure” the catallaxy cannot work. After all, the entire idea is that the Consumer is King. The welfare statists want to eliminate this minimum pressure. Their ideas only create a culture of dependency. They do not encourage enterprise. Amartya Sen has never supported Economic Freedom. Or Free Trade.

Recommended reading: My review of Amartya Sen’s earlier work Rationality and Freedom that was published in the New York Sun in 2003. To read, click here.