1. What is development?

The author Amartya Sen first gave a definition in the first paragraph” it’s a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” Furthermore, in author’s opinion, development is not just about gain in GNP and personal income in certain countries, but more about people’s desire and actions in gaining more political, social and all sorts of freedom in the society.

2. Is this an expansive or narrower view of development?

It’s more in an expansive view. Like I mentioned in my first answer, the author considered development in a boarder view that we should care more about the liberty of political participation or the opportunity to receive basic education and health care beyond the increase in wealth and economic progress.

3. What are some of the sources of unfreedoms development requires being removed?

There are several kinds of unfreedom the author has mentioned: The rejection of the freedom to participate in the labor market, the unfreedom in entering markets, unfreedom of exchange and transactions, economic unfreedom which may even lead to death, and also social or political unfreedoms. Furthermore, lack of basic education, clean water and food, the chance to speak freely can also be some unfreedoms that should be removed in the process of development.

4. Why is free and sustainable agency a major engine of development?

The author mentioned that “with adequate social opportunities, individuals can effectively shape their own destiny and help each other. They don’t need to be seen as passive recipients of the benefits of cunning development programs. Also, large amounts of institutions, including political parties, government, local authorities, educational arrangements and opportunities of open dialogue and debate also play a vital role in the process of development.

5. What does Amartya Sen say about being generically against markets?

Amartya mentioned that the unfreedom in tractions and some other market actions can be a source of unfreedom itself, which means people are stopped from doing what they want to achieve under no proper reason. Markets is one of the main forces of driving the economic growth and personal wealth. So, being generically against the market could have a negative effect that will ‘restraining the expansion of substantive freedoms that would have been generated through the market system.’

6. What was the story of Kader Mia? What was the penalty of his economic unfreedom?

Kader Mia was a Muslim daily laborer who came to the city of Dhaka, which is a hostile area at that time, only for little money to raise his family. In the time that Hindus and Muslims were killing each other, Kader Mia was unfortunately killed with a knife in his back. The penalty of his economic unfreedom turned out to be death and leaving his family with nothing to survive.

7.Who were Condorcet and Malthus? What were their primary arguments regarding development and fertility?

Condorcet was a French rationalist who argued that fertility rates would come down with the ‘progress of reason’, including greater security, more education, and more freedom of reflected decisions. Malthus, Condorcet’s contemporary had a different idea towards this question. Malthus argued that ‘there is no reason whatever to suppose that anything beside the difficulty of procuring in adequate plenty the necessaries of life should either indispose this greater number of persons to marry early, or disable them from rearing in health the largest families.’