Using Freedom to Destroy Freedom

Sen prefaces his account of Freedom as Development by putting forth 5 distinct types of freedom; (1) political freedoms, (2) economic facilities, (3) social opportunities, (4) transparency guarantees, and (5) protective security. To him, these freedoms are mutually reinforcing, meaning that one can ostensibly lead to/bolster the other, which makes freedom, as a whole, self-perpetuating. He discusses the capacity of each of the 5 aforementioned classifications of freedoms to act as both constitutive ends, which are freedoms as goals in themselves, and instrumental means, which are freedoms that help achieve other goals. 


Since freedoms are mutually reinforcing, as Sen argues, then democratic rights (chiefly, voting) can be of great use in the expansion and protection of other freedoms. By voting, for example, a marginalized group could pass a policy that accords them equal economic footing, or one that guarantees a more egalitarian distribution of social opportunity. 


This notion, to me, invites a host of criticism to the use of freedoms as “instruments”.  If freedoms can be used as tools, then they can also be misused. Oftentimes, political freedoms, exercised through democracy, are used to dismantle other freedoms, such as freedom to social opportunity or transparency. Take, for example, California’s Proposition 8, when the Californian electorate voted to ban same-sex marriage in 2008. In such a case, what would be the appropriate course of action? Would we curtail an individual's freedom to “determine who should govern and on what principles”, or would we let political freedom override its social counterpart? Even more parochial elections, such as voting for racist school superintendents or voting for cutting welfare for the homeless, encounter the same dilemma. In this case, Sen provides no recourse, choosing to focus solely on the positives of the instrumental use of freedoms.

In his defense of political freedoms, Sen argues that voting rights safeguard the people against policies that are to their detriment, as democratic governments  “have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentives to undertake measures to avert famines and other such catastrophes (16).  He boldly states that no nation with democracy has ever encountered a famine, and while that claim might be true, famine is just a single measure of “catastrophe”. Governments have caused many a “catastrophe”, and many of those were with public mandates accorded by public freedom. Indeed, was it not through democratic vote that the Nazi Party came to occupy a parliamentary plurality in 1932? Were there not democratic nations that committed great atrocity in both World Wars? Do people in our nation today, under the banner of political freedom, not vote to directly inhibit economic and social rights of others? Even though they may have evaded famine, democratic nations are no less freer from depriving individuals, even their own, of the very freedoms Sen deems essential to development. 


This leaves me to wonder if the solution to this dilemma is to eschew democratic voting altogether, and trust that a benevolent authoritarian government will guide development through creating freedoms, without democracy hindering its path. Perhaps Sen should not be so rash in his defenestration of “the Lee thesis” on page 15, and more directly confront the internal tensions within his own framework of freedom. Even if he merely suggests modifying the definition of political freedoms to limit infringement upon other types of freedom, it will certainly be more thorough than his current account. 

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