AMARTYA SEN: BIOGRAPHY, THEORY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Amartya Kumar Sen is an Indian economist and philosopher born in 1933. His work was recognized with the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998. The Stockholm Academy of Sciences, the entity that awards this prize, highlighted his contribution to the analysis of economic well-being.

Sen has distinguished himself for his studies on poverty and human development. He began to study these subjects after being impressed by the famines he witnessed in South Asia. Sen also collaborated in the establishment by the UN of the Human Development Index, seeking to go beyond the simple measurement of economic parameters.

Among his outstanding contributions is the theory of capacity, as well as his concept of development based on people and on the distribution of wealth in countries.

He has been a professor at various world universities and was a consultant at the World Institute for Research on Developing Economies between 1985 and 1993.

Biography of Amartya Sen

Early years

Amartya Sen came to the world in the Indian town of Santiniketan, in West Bengal when he was still a member of the British Raj. He was born on November 3, 1933 into a well-established Hindu family. His father was a university professor and president of the region's public administration organization.

Sen developed his secondary education in Dhaka in 1941, attending St. Gregory's School.

Studies in economics and philosophy

After finishing high school, Amartya Sen opted to study economics in Calcutta and graduated in 1953. Having just graduated, he went to the United Kingdom, specifically to Oxford, where he spent three years completing his training in the same subject at the prestigious Trinity College.

At the same center, he completed his doctorate in 1959 under the direction of Joan Robinson, a famous economist.

But Sen did not settle for these teachings, he also enrolled in Philosophy. According to himself, this discipline was very useful when developing his work, especially when entering moral grounds.

The apostles

One aspect that was important during his stay at Cambridge was his participation in the many debates that took place between supporters of John M. Keynes and economists opposed to his ideas.

In this environment of intellectual wealth, Sen was a member of a secret society, Los Apóstoles. In this he met many relevant figures of English society, such as Gerald Brenan, Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell and those later convicted of espionage in favor of the USSR, Kim Philby and Guy Burgess.

Career

Amartya Sen's professional career is closely related to the university world. He was a professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) until 1977 and at the University of Oxford for the next ten years. After Oxford, he went on to teach at Harvard.

In addition, he has been a member of numerous economic organizations, such as the Econometric Society (of which he was president), the Indian Economic Association, the American Economic Association, and the International Economic Association. Finally, it is worth noting that he was appointed honorary president of Oxfam and adviser to the UN.

Among the many published works, his essay Poverty and Hunger stands out. In this, he shows with data that famines in undeveloped countries are more related to the lack of wealth distribution mechanisms than to the lack of food.

Nobel Prize

The highest recognition for his work came in 1998, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The award came to him for having contributed to improving the welfare economy.

With the money awarded from the award, Sen founded the Pratichi Trust, an organization that seeks to improve health, literacy and gender equality in India and Bangladesh.

Theory of capabilities

Among the works of Amartya Sen is his theory of capabilities, considered one of the most valuable in the social sciences.

It is an analysis of human development and the problems faced by poor societies. The theory of capabilities aims to know the freedom that each person has to be able to exercise their rights, as well as to achieve a decent standard of living.

From the right to the ability to exercise it

In the theory presented by the Indian economist, an important difference is established between the rights that each person possesses (even in accordance with the laws of each country) and the ability to carry them out.

For Sen, each government should be judged depending on the capabilities of its citizens. The author gave a clear example of what he means by this: all citizens have the right to vote, but this is useless if they do not have the capacity to do so.

When speaking of ability in this context, Sen refers to a wide range of concepts. It can be from having been able to study (and, in this way, vote in a more informed way) to having the means to travel to your electoral college. If these conditions are not met, the theoretical law does not mean anything.

In any case, his theory approaches from positive freedom and not from negative. The first refers to the real capacity that each human being has to be or do something. The second is the one that is usually used in classical economics, only focused on non-prohibition.

Again, Sen uses an example to explain this difference: During the famine in his native Bengal, nothing curtailed the freedom to buy food. However, there were many deaths because they did not have the ability to buy those foods.

Human development concept

If there is one aspect that runs through all of Amartya Sen's work, it is human development and poverty. Since the 1960s, he joined the debates on the Indian economy and provided solutions to improve the well-being of underdeveloped countries.

The UN collected a good part of their contributions when its Program for Economic Development created the Human Development Index.

Exceed the numbers

The newest thing Sen brings to the field of human development is his attempt to not give as much importance to macroeconomic figures. In many cases, these are not able to reflect the level of well-being of society.

The author proposes to go beyond, for example, the Gross Domestic Product to measure prosperity. Fundamental freedoms to measure development are also important to him. Thus, rights such as health, education or freedom of expression have great importance in human development.

His definition of this development is the individual ability to choose the activities that they want to do freely.

In his own words, "it would be inappropriate to see human beings as mere 'instruments' of economic development." In this way, there can be no development without improving people's capabilities.

To exemplify this concept, Amartya Sen states that if one is illiterate, the risk of poverty and disease increases and, furthermore, the options to participate in public life are reduced.

References

1. Pino Méndez, José María. Amartya Sen and his conception of the human development index. Obtained from ntrzacatecas.com
2. Sánchez Garrido, Pablo. Amartya Sen or human development as freedom. Obtained from nuevarevista.net
3. Alvarez-Moro, Onesimo. Notable Economists: Amartya Sen. Obtained from elblogsalmon.com
4. The Nobel Foundation. Amartya Sen - Biographical. Retrieved from nobelprize.org
5. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Amartya Sen. Retrieved from britannica.com
6. Reid-Henry, Simon. Amartya Sen: economist, philosopher, human development doyen. Retrieved from theguardian.com
7. Bernstein, Richard. 'Development as Freedom': How Freedom Pays Off in Economic Well-Being. Retrieved from nytimes.com
8. O'Hearn, Denis. Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom: Ten Years Later. Retrieved from developmenteducationreview.com