Resisting insecurity and unfreedom

Q: What are the root causes of poverty across the globe, and what solutions would you put in place to address this? In particular, to what extent is eradication of poverty dependent as much on the promotion of basic human freedoms as on grass-roots economic growth?

A: On September 11, 2001, more people died from AIDS than from terrorist attacks, including the barbarities that were committed on that day. On a more normal day, many times more people around the world die from illnesses like AIDS, which can be prevented, cured or effectively managed. These facts do not reduce the nastiness of terrorism or the urgency of confronting and defeating it, but they do also point to the importance of keeping in mind the vastly larger number of human lives that are threatened by preventable but unprevented ailments.

The demands of human security include a balanced view of tragedies that are the result of terrible omissions as well as dreadful commissions. Since security is often considered only in the context of military challenges and violent deeds, it is necessary to emphasize the massive toll of human neglect. An adequate concept of human security in the contemporary world must include at least the following distinct elements:

(1) a clear focus on human lives (this would contrast, for example, with the technocratic notion of "national security" - the favored interpretation of "security" in the military context);
(2) an appreciation of the role of society and of social arrangements in making human lives more secure in a constructive way (avoiding a socially detached view of individual human predicament); and
(3) a fuller understanding of the coverage of human rights, which have to include not just political freedom and personal liberties (important as they are), but also societal concern with food, medical attention, basic education, and other elementary ingredients of human lives.

A good starting point for the analysis of development is the basic recognition that human freedom, in the broadest sense, is both (1) the primary objective, and (2) the principal means of development. The former is an evaluative claim and includes appreciation of the principle that the assessment of development cannot be divorced from the lives that people can lead and the real freedoms that they enjoy. Development can scarcely be seen merely in terms of enhancement of inanimate objects of convenience, such as a rise in the GNP (or in personal incomes), or industrialization, or technological advance, or social modernization. These are, of course, valuable - often crucially important - accomplishments, but their value must depend on what they do to the lives and freedoms of the people involved. We have reason to focus instead on reducing the unfreedoms and insecurities of various kinds that plague human lives.

Freedom is not only the ultimate end of development, it is also a crucially effective means. This acknowledgment can be based on empirical analysis of the consequences of - and interconnections between - freedoms of distinct kinds, and on the evidence that freedoms of different types typically help to sustain each other (I have discussed the conceptual as well as the empirical connections involved in Development as Freedom, New York: Knopf, 1999). What a person has the actual capability to achieve is influenced by economic opportunities, political liberties, social facilities, and the enabling conditions of good health, basic education, and the encouragement and cultivation of initiatives. These opportunities are, to a great extent, mutually complementary, and tend to reinforce the reach and use of one another. We do need an integrated understanding of human freedom and security.