Texts (1) to (9), highly recommended, embody the main conceptual framework for my teaching on
a) The Developmental State: Planning for Development (UCL/DPU),
b) Urban Development and Economics (UCL/DPU),
c) Theories and Perspectives on Environment and Development (LSBU/EfS).
(Dr. Róbinson  Rojas Sandford)

Sen joins a line of economists – including Cropsey, Schumacher, Myrdal, Ward, Higgins and Etzioni – who have objected to the implicit political philosophy within orthodox neo-classical economics. He argues that the good or just society requires policies to remove all forms of “unfreedoms”, and policies to equalise the extent of capability deprivation. This capabilities approach calls for a rejection of utilitarianism, libertarianism and Rawlsianism in favour of the conception of justice provided by his putatively Smithian/Aristotelian approach. In taking the expansion of freedom to be both the principal end and the principal means of development, however, Sen ignores other philosophical positions which lead to quite different conclusions. Accordingly, his argument remains incomplete and unpersuasive, and the most fundamental questions remain to be resolved.

An essay concerning the origins, nature, extent and morality of this destructive force in free market economies. Definitions. Paradoxes and omissions in Adam Smith's original theory permit - encourage - greed without restraint so that in a very large society [USA] over two centuries it has become an undemocratic force creating precipitous inequalities; divisions in this society now approach a kind of wealth apartheid, and our values are quite unlike Smith's: this is an immensely wealthy society but it is not a humane society.
Wealth and poverty are connected, in fact recent sociological theory shows our institutions routinely design inequality in, but this connection is largely avoided in texts and in the media, as is the notion that greed is a moral wrong. Problems created by greed cannot be solved by technology.
We are also distracted by already-outdated environmental rhetoric, arguments that scarcities and human suffering follow from abuse of our ecology. Rather, these scarcities are the result of what people do to people. This focus opens practical solutions.

In his article on Greed (Part 1, PAE Review, issue no. 31), Julian Edney recycles, with a radical twist, a common myth about Adam Smith’s work that has long been propagated in mainstream economics. According to this myth, Smith saw people as wholly self-interested:
“Adam Smith’s contribution was a step further, to give happiness a mercantile slant. In the new philosophy there is no conspicuous concern with sympathy, compassion, honesty, courage, grace, altruism, charity, beauty, purity, love, care nor honor. It accepts that humans are fundamentally selfish and egoistic and that they don’t care about society-as-a-whole. . . . He simply declared that the selfishness of each man [sic] and the good of society go together. The general welfare is best served by letting each person pursue his own interests.” (Edney, 2005)

In an official speech just a few weeks ago, Inacio Lula Da Silva, the polemical and ever so intriguing President of Brazil, threw hunger and poverty into that fashionable category of ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ Mr. Lula’s words were uttered not in a time of worldwide prosperity but in the midst of an international crisis of pandemic proportions: while global resources become increasingly endangered, the global governance system stands on the verge of collapse as some of the most powerful nations of the world disdain collaboration over intervention, concordance over imposition and dialogue over unilateralism. On the economic side of this dire picture, an important sector of the world’s population has been driven to take to the streets to manifest its discontent with the surge in global inequality, often attributed to the malformed policies of organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
In contrast and following the long tradition of economic thought that has permeated the West for generations, the heads of these same global organizations blame countries like Brazil, the home of Mr. Lula, for not adapting their domestic policies to the demands of these liberal times we live in. If this were only an inoffensive divergence in worldviews, nothing important would be at stake. However, at the core of this discussion lies the fate of millions of people, from the marginalized citizens of Michael Moore’s suburban USA to the famished refugees in Sudan.

Emmanuelle Benicourt recently initiated an interesting debate by questioning the view that Amartya Sen has made significant contributions to post-autistic economics. This counters the popular position that Sen goes far beyond the conventional confines of welfare economics and liberal philosophy, thereby overcoming the limitations of the neoclassical economic mainstream.
Ingrid Robeyns (2002), for instance, considers Sen’s idea of capabilities to be a consistent normative framework that ‘effectively links commodities, observable outcomes and unobservable opportunities’, offering thereby a far broader analytical scope than found in neoclassical economics. Benicourt challenges that view with the argument that the plurality of focus inherent in capabilities, not only precludes consistency on the normative front but renders the approach ‘ nonoperational for policy-makers’ (Benicourt 2004).
In contrast, Jorge Buzaglo (2003), while not denying that Sen’s capabilities approach has neoclassical roots, finds it to be a ‘radical-progressive’ variant, especially as he sees in capabilities an exploration of ‘the preferences of the mind’ in the Spinozian fashion.
Benicourt takes exception to that position as well, by pointing out that Sen does not venture too far from the theoretical perimeter of the Arrow-Debreu model nor does he abandon the idea of society contained therein; in fact, his failureto completely escape the ‘enchanting power of markets’ is evident from the seemingly contradictory positions he assumes regarding the role of the state vis-ŕ-vis markets in addressing the human plight (Benicourt 2004).

In issue 15 of this journal, I argued that Sen was a neoclassical economist, and questioned why heterodox economists considered his “capability approach” as a real force in post-autistic economics. Two responses have appeared.
First, Ingrid Robeyns argued that the view according to which the capability approach is undeniably neoclassical, just a variation of standard economics, is “fundamentally mistaken” (i.e., Sen is not neoclassical). Second, Jorge Buzaglo admitted Sen was neoclassical, but argued that he was a radical-progressive economist (i.e., Sen applies the conventional apparatus to the advancement of a progressive cause). Curiously, these responses are contradictory.  I will examine each in turn.

In a recent article in this review, Emmanuelle Benicourt (2002) challenges heterodox economists to explain why they consider Amartya Sen’s theoretical approach a real force for reform in economics. I would like to communicate here what I see as a real force for change in Amartya Sen’s approach to the economic dimension of human development. I would like to describe some of the genealogy of the approach, and also to show the potential that this critical tradition has for the renewal of economics.
Before I embark in my task I would like to refer to Emmanuelle Benicourt’s orthodox/heterodox partition of economics, which I do not think is very useful. Both categories are too heterogeneous to be helpful. If we consider what I think is a more useful categorization, that between conventional and progressive economics (or similar characterizations, such as conservative/radical, bourgeois/socialist, etc.), we will find orthodox and heterodox economists in both categories. Amartya Sen, for instance, is an orthodox economist, as both he and Emmanuelle Benicourt point out (Amartya Sen says “mainstream economist”). He is an orthodox economist because he uses the conventional apparatus of ordinary neoclassical theory.
But as I see it, he is a progressive orthodox economist, since he applies this conventional apparatus to the advancement of a progressive cause, namely, the cause of equality. The equality he advocates is not merely economistic/utilitarian, but refers also to all other dimensions (“functionings”) of human existence. A quite radical message indeed, articulated in the suave and diplomatic language of neoclassical economics. One can only speculate if this is an Aesopian strategy of telling subversive truths in covered language, or if it would be better or more effective to develop a more appropriate heterodox idiom to say the same thing. But it must be admitted that many a heterodox economist would shy away from so radical an objective for economic science and human development.

The view of the economy as a causally structured, directly observable system of relationships existing in time has deep roots and lively ramifications in economic theory. One of the oldest sources of this view is the Tableau Économique of François Quesnay (published in 1766). For Quesnay, the chief question for investigation was what causes the wealth of the nation, and how this wealth circulates between "la classe productive, la classe des propriétaires and  la classe stérile."
The Tableau is the first sophisticated analysis of the flow of value through the economy and among social classes. This focus on value creation and distribution was characteristic of the classical economists, including Marx, and could be seen as the permanent characteristic of a wide strand of economics that flourishes still today. This wide current includes nowadays post- and neo- Keynesian ( Kaleckian) economics, Sraffrian and neo-Ricardian economics, input-output economics, and (non-interactionist) post- and neo-Marxian economics. But what from the Spinoza-Sen perspective is still lacking in all these theoretical approaches is how output and distribution relate to capabilities. These theories focus on the growth and distribution of output and incomes, but not on how they influence the growth and distribution of human capabilities. These theories describe production and distribution/exploitation in the system where “the accumulation of capital is God and the prophets.” We should also analyse systems operating towards expanding human capabilities.

Economics and ethics are interrelated because both economists (theorists and policy advisers) and economic actors (sellers, consumers, workers, investors) hold ethical values that help shape their behavior. In the first case economists must try to understand how their own values affect both economic theory and policy. In the second case this means economic analysis must broaden its conception of human behavior.
In a previous article in this journal I dealt with the first issue. In this article I will focus on the importance of the second issue-- economic theory, with its myopic focus on self-interest, obscures the fact that preferences are formed not only by material self-interest but also by ethical values, and that market economies require that ethical behavior for efficient functioning.

Economics and ethics are interrelated because both economists (theorists and policy advisers) and economic actors (sellers, consumers, workers) hold ethical values that help shape their behavior. In the first case economists must try to understand how their own values affect both economic theory and policy. In the second case this means economic analysis must broaden its conception of human behavior.
In this article I will focus on the first of these two issues-- economists construct theory upon a particular world view, resulting in basic concepts, such as efficiency, being value-laden.

Sen’s capability approach has its roots both in welfare economics (Sen 1985, 1987), where it was the logical extension of his earlier work on the informational poverty of utilitarian calculus (e.g. Sen 1979), as well as in the philosophical literature on inequality (1980), where it was proposed as an alternative to both the utilitarian and the resourcist paradigms. The capability approach advocates that in making evaluations of well-being or policies, we focus on what people can do and be, instead of exclusively on their mental states (utilitarianism) or on the goods that they have at their disposal (resourcism). Over time, Sen and others have extended the scope of the capability approach to study such divers issues as development and development ethics (Gasper 1997, Sen 1999), the evaluation of small-scale NGO-projects (Alkire 2002), eating disorders and famines (Lavaque-Manty 2001), unemployment and inactivity (Burchardt 2002), gender inequality in western societies (Robeyns 2002), to mention just a few.
At this moment PhD students are using the capability framework to study topics such as well-being of disabled people, environmental law and climate change, and the impact of a financial crisis on people’s well-being. The Human Development Report, which is currently (one of) the strongest alternative frameworks to the neoliberalist “Washington consensus”, is largely based on the normative foundations of Sen’s capability approach. In other words, the capability approach has gradually developed into a paradigm, which moves between and beyond existing disciplines, and which is applied in many more domains than only welfare economics or liberal philosophy.

Orthodox economics conspicuously lacks a satisfying account of social being and is thus unable to provide a practical starting point in addressing many of the problems of being that humanity now confronts. It is theoretically impoverished and practically bereft. As PAE and previous forums have shown, the current orthodoxy of economics is neither explanatorily powerful nor is it genuinely scientific. One way of showing this is to explore how its science, its method and its power are founded on a series, a cascade, of inversions of dimensions of realisms that corrupt science and method in the name of that power. Those inversions include issues of:

• The relation between economy and being
• Synchronous behaviour
• The ill of being
• The alienated economist
• Alienated method

My starting point or primary organising principle is that economics as an explanatorily powerful (and thus scientific) discipline should account for what we live for, but that it is not economics for which we live.

The numerous reactions to Bernard Guerrien’s essay (“Is There Anything Worth Keeping in Standard Micro-Economics?”, pae review n°12 and n°13) show that there is no consensus among heterodox economists concerning what constitutes “autistic” economics. In this article, I would like to initiate another but parallel debate by questioning the widely held opinion that Amartya Sen has made an important contribution to post-autistic economics. I wonder if he is really, as Geoff Harcourt implies, “a real force for good in our discipline and [if] the award of the Nobel Prize to him is a positive signal, to be embraced, not belittled”.
Before examining Amartya Sen’s theoretical system, let’s recall that he was not awarded the Nobel Prize for his eventual “heterodox” research programme, but for his very mainstream contributions to “standard” economics - particularly for his work on Social Choice (Nobel Press Release, October 14, 1998). The Prize thus mainly concerns Sen’s early work in which he tried to go beyond Arrow’s “Impossibility Theorem” by weakening certain formal – and secondary – conditions (see, for example, Collective Choice and Social Welfare, 1970). The 1998 Nobel Prize, therefore, does not reward Sen’s possible “de- autistification” of economics.

“Farewell! A long farewell to all my greatness.”
Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII (III, ii)

"Although they differ on a number of matters, development ethicists exhibit a wide consensus about the commitments that inform their enterprise, the questions they are posing and the unreasonableness of certain answers. Development ethicists typically ask the following related questions:

- What should count as (good) development?
- Should we continue using the concept of development instead of, for example, 'progress,' 'transformation,' 'liberation,' or 'postdevelopment alternatives to development' (Escobar 1995)?
- What should be a society's basic economic, political and cultural goals and strategies, and what principles should inform their selection?
- What moral issues emerge in development policymaking and practice and how should they be resolved?
- How should the burdens and benefits of development be conceived and distributed?
- Who or what should be responsible for bringing about development? A nation's government, civil society or the market?
- What role—if any— should more affluent states, international institutions, and nongovernmental associations and individuals have in the self-development of poor countries?
- What are the most serious local, national and international impediments to good development?
- To what extent, if any, do moral scepticism, moral relativism, national sovereignty and political realism pose a challenge to this boundary-crossing ethical inquiry?
- Who should decide these questions and by what methods?"

"Development ethics is useless unless it can be translated into public action. By public action is meant action taken by public authority, as well as actions taken by private agents by having important consequences for the life of the public community. The central question is: How can moral guidelines influence decisions of those who hold power?"
(Denis Goulet, The Cruel Choice, 1971)

It is generally not recognized that two Nobel laureates in economics have provided two conflicting theories of what will happen to world income under globalization:

1. Based on the standard assumptions of neo-classical economic theory, US economist Paul Samuelson ‘proved’ mathematically that unhindered international trade will produce ‘factor-price equalization’, that is that the prices paid to the factors of production – capital and labour – will tend to be the same all over the world.
2. Based in an alternative dynamic tradition – which we here label The Other Canon – Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal was of the opinion that world trade would tend to increase already existing differences in incomes between rich and poor nations.

We would argue that the second approach easily incorporates the main elements of evolutionary or neo-Schumpeterian economics, but with a broader theoretical and historical perspective and with a broader agenda. The aim of this book is to explore the contributions of today’s evolutionary economics to the understanding of the increasing gap in global income inequality, that is to broaden the normal perspective of neo-Schumpeterian economics consciously into the realm of development economics.