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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THEORY
Human Development arose in the mid 1980s as a direct challenge to 'economic development'. The challenge is clear. Whereas 'economic development' aims at maximising economic growth, the objective of human development is to expand human freedom, to enable people to flourish. Human well-being, freedom and flourishing thus become the "end" of economic activities. Economic growth and other economic, political, and social investments are useful insofar as they act as means to improve human lives. Thus the approach draws not only on Aristotle but also on Kant: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.”
The protagonists who crafted human development include the late Mahbubul Haq as well as Sudhir Anand, Amartya Sen, Frances Stewart, Paul Streeten, and a number of others. Conceptually, human development draws directly on Amartya Sen's capability approach, as can be seen in the summary of human development from the 2004 Human Development Report:
People are the real wealth of nations. Indeed, the basic purpose of development is to enlarge human freedoms. The process of development can expand human capabilities by expanding the choices that people have to live full and creative lives. And people are both the beneficiaries of such development and the agents of the progress and change that bring it about. This process must benefit all individuals equitably and build on the participation of each of them. This approach to development—human development—has been advocated by every Human Development Report since the first in 1990. Human Development Report 2004 p 127
Human development theory is an economic theory that merges older ideas from ecological economics, sustainable development, welfare economics, and feminist economics. It seeks to avoid the overt normative politics of most so-called "green economics" by justifying its theses strictly in ecology, economics and sound social science, and by working within a context of globalization.
Like ecological economics it focuses on measuring well-being and detecting uneconomic growth that comes at the expense of human health. However, it goes further in seeking not only to measure but to optimize well-being by some explicit modelling of how social capital and instructional capital can be deployed to optimize the overall value of human capital in an economy - which is itself part of an ecology. The role of individual capital within that ecology, and the adaptation of the individual to live well within it, is a major focus of these theories.
The most notable proponent of human development theory is Amartya Sen, who asked, in Development as Freedom, "what is the relationship between our wealth and our ability to live as we would like?"
This question cannot be answered strictly from an energy, feminist, family, environmental health, peace, social justice, or ecological well-being point of view, although all of these may be factors in our happiness, and if tolerances of any of these are violated seriously, it would seem impossible to be happy at all.
Accordingly, human development theory is a major synthesis that is probably not confined within the bounds of conventional economics or political science, nor even the political economy that relates the two.
See also
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