Sen treating Marx as a means

In Amartya Sen’s Freedom as Development he proposes the view that current economic models that use GDP per capita or average income as a metric of development are severely misunderstanding the idea of development. He instead proposes that we use freedom as a metric of development in order to actually understand whether the individual has access to means of development (4). He argues that without freedom, one cannot evaluate what to do or how to exercise their freedom and further, one cannot achieve development without free agency. 


Sen’s arguments sound very similar to a fondly relevant term coined by Marx, the species being. Marx defines a species-being as one who can exercise his will at all moments, choosing to hunt in the day, learn in the afternoon and fish in the evening. Marx argues that any sort of civil society with a market economy makes it so that man cannot do what he wishes for he is enslaved by his division of labour. 


Sen seems to argue that it is nonsensical to generically be against markets as they are similar to conversations with people and we should value the freedom to exchange (6). He says there is no need for defensive justification in terms of their favorable but distant effects. However, Sen argues that wealth is a means to exercise freedom and improve one' s development. This is particularly interesting as he sees wealth as an invitation to access substantive freedoms. 


This seems right in many ways, though I wonder how Sen can reconcile Marx’s means to an end discussion. Marx advocates that the species-being does not treat any person or thing as a means to an end but rather as an end itself. This idea of intrinsic value associated with one's activity at hand is how one evades the exploitation of society and the enslavement of something outside of themselves. I believe the problem with Sen advocating that we treat wealth as a means to an end invites many forms of exploitation as one can simply chase their own freedom by accumulating wealth, but gain no substantive freedoms as they are so deeply stuck in their division of labor. This seems risky to me because Marx argues that treating anything as a means is a slippery slope to exploitation. What happens if, as Sen argues, we all treat wealth as a means to freedom and we take turns exploiting each other to exercise our freedom? Did we really gain substantive freedom? Are we not simply following some implicit market ideology that chasing wealth is what we are meant to do? 


I understand Sen’s proposal is to advocate for change among those who cannot exercise any sort of freedoms because they do not have wealth. However, I don’t believe the way to counter that is to add them to the exploitative race. Wouldn’t the best form of change be to dismantle the systems that inherently carry such exploitative means? Ex. If everyone is cheating on the test to do well, do you encourage the students who are doing badly to cheat too? 

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