Amartya Sen’s Outlook On Development As Freedom And Its Implications For The Development Of Modern China

Development as freedom is a new perspective of social development theoretical research. 1998 Nobel laureate in economics, the Indian economist Amartya Sen set forth his insights on development in his book "Development as Freedom". By carding Sen’s Outlook on Free Development, it’s not hard to see that it was guided by Marx’s freedom thought. In Sen’s view, freedom is a feasible capacity and a kind of right, he considers that development is a comprehensive process involved in economic, political, social values, etc. Sen considers freedom as "substantive freedom", which is the ultimate goal and an important means of development. Sen’s view is an important reference for us to better practice the socialist core values as well as to comprehend the "five development concepts" more completely.Under the guidance of Marxism, this paper utilize the documentary method and the method of comparative study to interpret the theoretical source of Amartya Sen’s Outlook on Free Development from four aspects, namely, the special life experience, impact of western liberal ideology, criticism of the traditional outlook on development and impact of Marxism related thoughts. The first aspect is interpreted from childhood stage, school stage and teaches stage; the second aspect is interpreted from Tagore’s thought, "idea of India", classical economics and classical economists’ freedom thought and neoclassical economics and neoclassical economists’ freedom thought; the third aspect is interpreted from the criticism of the "economic growth" outlook of development, the criticism of the "needs satisfaction" outlook of development and the criticism of sustainable development; the fourth aspect is interpreted from Marxism freedom thought, Marxism development thought and Marxism equality ideology.This paper gives an elaboration on the main content and the theoretical qualities of Amartya Sen’s Outlook of the Free Development. The main content of Sen’s outlook is explained in two points respectively, one is that freedom is the main goal of development, the other is that freedom is the important means of development. In terms of the theoretical qualities, we consider there are three main features, namely, to guide development with ethics, to enhance development with reason and to treat development with freedom, and three basic principles, namely, human-oriented principle, subjectivity principle and universalism principle.Sen’s Outlook of Free Development is theoretically evaluated. This paper argues that Sen’s outlook has three theoretical contributions, the first is the humanization tendency highlighting the social development, the second is the reconstruction of the ethical level of economic questions, the third is the explanation of development from the angle of freedom. However, Sen’s Outlook of Free Development also keeps a certain theoretical limitations, which are explained in three aspects:the first is insufficiency of discussing how to realize the combination of economics and ethics, the second is the ambiguity of the concept definition of "development", the third is the neglect of the profound reasons leading to the inequality of the right distribution. There are certainly some differences between Sen’s outlook and Marx’s thought of free development. The differences are interpreted from the angle of human’s need, preference, capacity and inner value respectively.On the basis of the analysis and comparison above, the references of Amartya Sen’s Outlook of Free Development to contemporary China are concluded. General references to contemporary China are summed up from three angles, namely, more attention paid to the improvement of the living conditions, more attention paid to the construction of human’s feasible capacity and more attention paid to human’s comprehensive development. Of course, Sen’s outlook is compared with the present "five development concepts". General meanings of the "five development concepts", common meanings of the two concept and the reference significance are studied respectively.Throughout Amartya Sen’s thought of Free Development, he gives more concern on human’s initiative and shows a unique approach advantages to lay a solid foundation for people to treat the development with freedom. However, his thought exposed some theoretical defects as well, which is precisely worthy of further exploration.