Monday, August 10, 2009

The Idea of Fiction of Social Justice!

So, Prof Amartya Sen’s latest book “The Idea of Social Justice” is out and many of you may be thinking heavy bites probably the notion of justice in India! As I have posted here my first take on his book.

When we see people talks on the idea of justice on the same line of Sen’s argument it seems to be that these people never dare to think beyond their writers or teachers.

Let’s go back to some of Sen’s interview and excerpts from this book:

From the ET NOW Interview:

  • “….all our policies relate to injustice because none of our policies, even ones like the employment guarantee scheme, will make the world perfectly just, it will only make the world a little less unjust.
  • ……..the democratic institutions might exist but their utilisation might be quite limited, partly through our own fault because we don’t engage enough, partly it’s about the way the media is organised and its limits or the way the parties are organised.
  • ……….there is a school of thought which is very powerful, that took that view. But there is a little bit of a contradiction there. Those that take the view that human beings act only on self interest, they should have been in favour of regulation. Because human beings won’t spontaneously act that way. But you have a peculiar combination of people believing in self-interest but holding the view that regulation is bad. It’s a mystery.
  • The solution to the mystery is a belief in the effectiveness of the neeti of the market. The market is so magical, even though everyone is acting in their self interest, it’s working out in the interest of everybody. That requires a very special theory. People often attribute it to Adam Smith, but Adam Smith explicitly denied that. I think it’s the theory of the so-called efficient market. Self adjusting, self correcting, self directing market system. And that kind of faith in the neeti is completely unjustified.
  • ………stupidity arises from the institutional faith in the magical power of the market as a neeti. If you study air crashes, you will find that if there is one thing that goes wrong, the plane still flies. You need several things to go wrong on top of one another for the plane to nose dive. What went wrong with the market economy story was a similar combination of mistakes that were made.”

First of all if your dare to think ONE STEP Ahead of Sen’s understanding say from F A Hayek point of view, even beyond I’m sure you will say that there is no such thing as “Social Justice”.

Instead of saying “all our policies relate to injustice because none of our policies” we should ask are they aimed at people’s individual freedom, liberty and property? The answer is a big NO!

It is completely illusion to say that “we don’t engage enough” infact, if The State is minimal there is greater participation among people for their needs.

While attacking this book Acorn argues “Dr Sen’s line is dangerous because it threatens to reduce the importance of individual rights and freedom, and supplant them with the discourse of social justice”.

Other readings:

From Mint book review The rational synthesis

From Outlook interview “I am a friend of the Left and my politics has been on the Left, but sometimes it’s difficult to recognise what is Left, what is Right. I am in favour of fighting today’s battles rather than yesterday’s battles.

From his book excerpts published in The Hindu “Justice and the world”

The Nobel Prize-winning economist is inspiring Labour politicians with his theory that inequalities of power matter as much as inequalities of income.

How “relevance of Amartya Sen” ideas?

Book review from OutlookIndia ‘Doing’ Justice

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