Poverty, Freedom, and Solidarityin the Thought of Amartya Sen

After the fall of communism in 1989 in Poland, a large portion of decision-makers responsible for the socioeconomic transformations held a neoliberal understanding of freedom. This negative construal of freedom does not see poverty as a lack of freedom. A person is free when no other human being, group, or institution coerces her. In other words, a person is free when the principle of noninterference is upheld. Moreover, the interference of the state in the economic sphere obviates freedom. The neoliberal conception of freedom also holds that freedom does not require solidarity or any assistance from others. Thus, a poor person is free so long as he or she is left to fend for themselves without interference from others. This article appeals to Amartya Sen’s conception of freedom to argue that, in contradistinction to Leszek Balcerowicz’s contention, poverty is tantamount to a lack of human freedom. The article describes Sen’s multifaceted conception of freedom, including the differentiation between instrumental and substantive freedoms, as well as the relationship between them. The relationship among freedoms, as well Sen’s conception of poverty as capability deprivation, illuminates the true nature of poverty, which often negates the ability to achieve substantive freedoms. The article also elucidates how freedom in a free-market economy and democracy constitutes both a goal of development and a path to solidarity. Sen’s paradigm also demonstrates that advancing freedom requires solidarity because freedom is in a certain sense a social entity. Sen rightly maintains that the realization of freedom requires solidarity embodied in social institutions, including, at least in some cases, governmental institutions. On the macro scale, Sen’s conception of development and freedom reveals the problematic nature of “shock therapy” used in Poland during the initial phase of the social economic transformations after 1989. In this sense, this article situates Sen’s thought in the Polish socioeconomic context, which also reveals the significance of Sen’s thought more clearly. Finally, the concluding section of the article points to some similarities (and some differences) between Sen’s ideas and Catholic social thought.