Abstract
This scholarly and insightful paper makes a very important intellectual intervention in today’s context of macroeconomic policies informed by the neoliberal logic of development that political leaders and mainstream economists of nation states all over the globe are imposing. The author, Professor M.A. Oommen, a veteran development economist, rightly avers that economic theories have to be grounded on social reality. His attention is on the ends and means of economics.
The author provides a detailed account of the theoretical unfolding of growth theories starting from Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ to neoliberal thinking marked by an ‘invisible heart’. He minces no words against economic thinking that valourises the philosophy of ‘might is right’ and ‘market fundamentalism’. He has made a strong case in favour of the human development approach and right-based perspective and draws inspiration from theories of social justice, distributive justice and gender justice. The author has provided insights into the capabilities approach put forward by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum that advocates that capabilities supply guidance superior to that of utility and resources and ensures universal human rights. Thus right to food, shelter, education, freedom, justice and bodily integrity get integrated into the human development growth models. He also avers that this approach brings economics closer to ethics and justice.
The author criticises Lionel Robbins for dividing countries into ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ as this type of classification is ahistoric and asocial and camouflages the colonial exploitation of the global south by the global north for over 200 years in Africa and Latin America. Economic benefits derived by institutionalisation of slavery in the African continent for over five centuries that provided primitive accumulation of capital by the so-called ‘developed countries’ never get mentioned in economics textbooks. Not only this, contributions of subsistence economies in ensuring livelihoods and unpaid care economy are not only never recognised or acknowledged, but they are also attributed traits such as ‘laggard’, ‘parasites’, ‘suckers’, ‘unskilled’ or ‘mere beneficiaries of the economic development’.
The author appreciates the theories that deconstruct ‘social exclusion’ of the marginalised sections of society on the ground of caste, class, race, religion, ethnicity, language, age and gender. He acknowledges intersectionality that creates overlapping and interdependent structures and systems of disadvantage and discrimination, subordination and subjugation. He also focuses on some concerns, widely debated over the last 200 years, that is, evaluating individual and collective well-being about which the neoclassical marginalist school is quite evasive. While deconstructing the development literature produced by the World Bank and some UN agencies, the authors points out the influence of Vilfredo Pareto.
Professor Oommen makes a convincing argument for the affirmative action taken by the state and non-state actors to compensate for historical injustices to socio-economically deprived sections of society. He also emphasises the need for equity to attain social justice and institutionalisation of structures and mechanisms for inclusive polices for socio-economically excluded sections of the economy, as free forces of market have not proved to be an equaliser for different sections with mutually exclusive interests. He supports the capabilities approach because of its usefulness in constructing a normative conception of social justice, in addressing gender and caste-based differentiations and subordination-domination power relationships based on race, religion and location. The capabilities approach advocates entitlements of each and every human being for his or her portion of the development cake. This approach helps in evolving policies for social protection and social security to enhance capabilities of people to exercise greater freedom and substantive justice. While reading this thought provoking article, I was reminded of famous statement of Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stieglitz (2007), ‘Development is about transforming lives of people, not just transforming economies.’
Neoclassical versus Institutional Approach
The author is convinced that without getting out of the neoclassical and neoliberal framework, it is not possible to build development theories and policies relevant to human well-being. The neoclassical approach of consumer’s rationality (maximisation of utility) and producers’ rationality (maximisation of profit) has come under massive attack by dalit studies, tribal studies, ethnicity studies, disability studies and women’s studies scholars as they find it ahistorical, simplistic, gender-neutral and devoid of a human face. Its philosophy of laissez faire does not acknowledge the unequal power relations determined by colonialism, neo-colonialism and segmentation in the labour, factor and product markets based on caste, class, ethnicity, race, religion, age and gender. As against this, the institutional approach is found more realistic and hence appropriate as it takes into consideration historical, socio-cultural, geographical and political dynamics in economic analysis.
It is a matter of great distress that unsurmountable human miseries generated by macroeconomic policies in the name of economic stabilisation, structural adjustment programmes, resulting into drastic reduction in social sector budgets, were and are still imposed on poor countries by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The economic hardships of a large majority of the toiling masses have resulted in social and political unrest and the ruling elite have undermined the democratic ethos to ruthlessly crush the agitated masses. Neoliberal macroeconomic measures and authoritarian political regimes go hand in hand. A large majority of Nobel Laureates in Economics, except Professor Amartya Kumar Sen and Professor Joseph Stieglitz, have not even demanded a review of these anti-people, macro-economic measures that force the urban and rural poor to live a dehumanised existence.
The author has critically reflected on concepts, theories, growth and development models of established economists of the industrialised world who have a agenda setting power in economics. What he misses out is the contribution of gender economics as an academic discipline that has engendered economic thinking over the last three decades.
Critique of Conventional Economic Indicators of Development
The bubble of the ‘trickledown theory’ popularised during the post-War, colonial period of the 1950s and 1960s, burst by the 1970s as socio-economic inequalities had exacerbated due to the concentration and centralisation of economic resources in the hands of a microscopic minority in all countries. The conventional indicators of development such as modernisation, technological development, mechanisation, automation, urbanisation, industrialisation were critiqued by gender economists as they not only bypassed but also further marginalised women. Gender economists locate the subordination of women in the economy in the patriarchal control over sexuality, fertility and labour of women through the five pillars of male domination—family, kinship network, media, religion and state.
Gender economists have provided three approaches known as WID-WAD-GAD to understand a woman’s role in the micro-meso and macro-economy. There has been a coexistence of all these three approaches for women’s development. WID, the Women in Development Model, explains the material basis for women being treated as beneficiaries of the crumbs that are thrown at them—in the margins of economy, as consumers of capitalist production and an auxiliary labour force to be utilised in a crisis period and eased out the moment men are ready to take over. The discourse revolves around the economic growth paradigm. WAD, the Women and Development Model, integrates women in development work as active change agents. Affirmative action by the state and proactive approach by civil society through non-state actors and women’s groups are advocated by these models for the empowerment of women against the forces of patriarchal class society. Voluntary organisations implementing this approach have become a powerful force during the 1990s. GAD, the Gender and Development Model, is based on an understanding of gender relations and empowering the weak (who can be a male or a female).
Gender is socially constructed and gender relations are power relations. Gender economics power is an important analytical category. Explicit measures of gender inequalities are sex-ratio, literacy rates, health and nutrition indicators, economic opportunities, wage differentials and ownership of land and property. The implicit relations are those embedded in relations of power and in hierarchies are more difficult to measure. Located in households, in kinship networks, in communities, in custom, religion and culture, these intra-household inequalities result in the unequal distribution of care and nurturance, opportunities and power, control over resources and decision-making, dependence rather than self-reliance as well as unjust-unequal distribution of work, drudgery and even food. The overwhelming structures of patriarchy crush the potential of a large majority of women under its weight through the control of women’s destiny throughout her life cycle, from womb to tomb. ‘Super women’ who are able to look after the interests of each and every stake holder are survivors in this model. In the Indian context, women’s predicament in the economic development is determined by the complex interplay of power relations based on class, caste, ethnicity and religion.
Caste and Gender Based Division of Labour
In South Asia, the caste and gender based division of work
Gender and the Process of Economic Development
The incorporation of subsistence economies into ‘modern’ market economies has brought into question the traditional gender based division of labour as an organising principle in the rural and urban sector because of the basic injustice it perpetuates. Women end up doing the least skilled work and are underpaid or are expected to contribute to survival needs of the family without any corresponding benefits. Esther Boserup (1970) in her pioneering work brought to the fore, African women’s crucial contribution towards food security and explained the political economy of polygamy in Africa that allowed men to concentrate and centralise economic resources through unpaid and backbreaking labour of women and children in the subsistence economy that did not have much animal resources or agrarian technologies for the cultivation of land.
Visibility of Women in Statistics and Data System
For the effective execution of macro-policies such as the National Perspective Plans and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is a need for an accurate data base, area studies and time allocation studies, studies on energy expenditure and food consumption patterns among different communities, public utility services such as education, transport, sanitation and public health. Gender economists have done pioneering work to understand the demographic profile of women and the sex ratio. The formulation of a gender awareness data system on literacy, education level, employment and earnings, health and well-being helps proper planning and policy making for empowerment of women. Inter-district, inter-state and cross-country comparisons of women’s empowerment are obtained from the gender-related development index (GDI). GDI owes its origin to its precursor, the Human Development Index (HDI), three main components of which are per capita income, educational attainment and life-expectancy which is a proxy for health attainment. Gender disparities are measured keeping these three indicators in mind.
The current development debate has resulted in the generation of meaningful indicators of human development. The comparative data of 130 countries, regarding the HDI and GDI, reveal that gender equality does not depend entirely on the income level of society. So high economic growth alone cannot and will not guarantee the development of a majority of the world’s population (Patel, 2002).
Contemporary Concerns
The human development approach which focuses on demographic, health, educational and human rights profiles has revealed that there is an urgent need to re-examine this approach by conducting participatory action research and rapid rural appraisal not by social scientists alone but in collaboration with other professionals such as scientists, doctors, occupational health and safety experts, engineers and lawyers who believe that like them, citizens from the subsistence sector also have a right to enjoy the fruits of economic development in terms of food security, safe transport, clean environment, secure housing and healthy life. Thus development economists have to be interdisciplinary in their thinking and get out of playing with Lego games of model building based on abstractions and generalisations. Professor Oommen’s article provides rich food for thought in this direction.