Views of Amartya Sen - Political Science

Views of Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen has argued that 'the market economy does not work by itself in global relations-indeed, it cannot operate alone even within a given country'. Significant was the growth in influence of neo-liberal ideologies and their promotion by powerful politicians like Reagan in the USA and Thatcher in the UK. Development with human touch is the need for developing nation like India. Under globalisation, the economic and political sovereignty of a nation should no be surrendered. A balanced approach is needed for both market economy and welfare economics

Multinational Corporations (MNCs), with the collaboration of Bretton Woods Institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have imposed their strategic plan through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The strategy is to allow MNCs free access to all countries, removing all trade restrictions.:

IMF and World Bank strategic plans:

Reduction of budgetary subsidies

Removal of subsidies for agricultural inputs

Removal of food subsidies

Pursuance of liberal economic policies

Promotion of foreign investment

Import liberalisation

Privatisation of the banking sector

WTO

Reduction of subsidies

Reduction of support for domestic agriculture

Removal of PDS (food subsidies)

Pursuance of free trade by developing countries

Removal of restrictions on MNCs in utilities industries

Removal of barriers on imports

Lifting restrictions on entry of foreign investors

The Bretton Woods institutions for their part continue to be made the centre of gravity for the principle economic decisions that affect the developing countries.

An audit of the performance of the Indian economy after reforms were initiated in July 1991 fails to reveal any spectacular achievements. The opening of the economy to foreign capital has not succeeded in attracting a significant flow of capital or technology into the country, especially into the productive.

The World of Information

'The information revolution is destroying the nation state and promoting regional confederations of city-states. Whereas the industrial Revolution was a centralizing force, the Information Revolution is a decentralising force'.

Evaluation

The old map of states is being shaken by the roots-some states have fallen to pieces, some have formed massive trading alliances, most in the west seem to be yielding sovereignty to the world of globalisation and market forces, and all are yielding large areas of social and economic responsibility to the private and not-for-profit sectors. At the same time across recently collapsed or vanished empires in Africa, the former USSR and Yugoslavia, we may observe the very worst aspects of nineteenth-century nationalistic chauvinism and intolerance, the resurgence of ethnic animosities among, for instance the Kurds, the non-Moslems of the Southern Sudan or the Chinese in Tibet.