Poverty and Feminist by Amartya Sen - Book Report/Review Example

Allwriting Academic writer Farzeela Faisal Dec-14-2005 Amartya Sen’s Book Review (Chap1-7): Poverty and Famines The report based on the book review of Amartya Sens ‘Poverty and Feminist’ revolves around the discussion of two very different kinds of threats to human security: conflict, and various social-economic privations in the realms of poverty, health, and education. Chapter 1 is a brief overall description about different entitlement approaches and relationships based on labor policies and employment. In this chapter starvation is discussed not only as a characteristic but also as different type of entitlement relations, which vary with economic systems distinguishing between the effects of socialist and capitalist economy. According to Sen it depends entirely upon a person’s capabilities as to how far he goes in order to avoid starvation and hunger. Production modes are discussed by giving several examples of different economic prospects for example, if the output is food, e.g. rice or wheat, the sharecropper gets his return in a form such that he can directly eat it without going through the vagaries of the market. In contrast, the agricultural laborer paid in money terms will have to depend on the exchange entitlement of his money wage. (Amartya Sen) Chapters 2 and 3 discusses the life in poverty, various concepts are highlighted in the essence of poverty, how is poverty identified and in which terms it is measured and on what basis. Chapter 4 has discussed a rule in which Sen suggests about Famines imply starvation, but vice versa is not possible similarly starvation implies poverty, but not vice versa. It examines the problem individuals and communities experience in situations of violent conflicts and immediate postconflict environments and by populations displaced within a country or across state borders. (Viva Vox). It discusses how starvation is associated with the concept of famine. Chapters 5 -7 addresses the relationship between poverty and human security, the links between health and human security, and the role of knowledge and education in advancing human security. Discussing the Bengal and Ethiopian Famines in detail, Sen focuses the background of the crops in Bengal and the reason for starvation in Ethiopia. In chapter 2 Sen wants us to understand the reason for faminity and poverty and gives a suggestion for decreasing faminity in especially those areas where there is a severe lack of food, that food is wasted on a daily basis in most of the world, if such food is given to the starving areas of the world, there would be an intense drop down in faminity. He also discusses the causes and effects of poverty on different cultures and classes. One of the most violent effects he observes on the lower class of poverty is the use of arms and ammunitions and the reason she states is again hunger and poverty. While analyzing the relationship between these two it is concluded that violence and poverty has a parallel relationship, i.e., as poverty increases, violence increases. The last 100 years has become more violent as a result of the spread of weapons of all kinds including small arms, landmines, and weapons of mass destruction but also that civilian populations are increasingly the targets and victims of warfare. The report correctly asserts that much greater attention has to be paid to the most vulnerable and affected groups women, children, the elderly, the disabled, and the indigenous with an emphasis on protection strategies informed by an appreciation of human rights in war-torn and war-prone situations. Where conflict prevention is a real policy option, it properly argues “preventive strategies should give higher priority to the protection of people in collapsed states and contested regions, whose citizenship is often at risk”. (Viva Vox) In chapter 3, Sen has discussed problems of measuring poverty regarding aggregations by giving several examples. Sen want us to visualize and understand the logical aspect of faminity i.e., why does it happens that in one corner of the world there is no poverty while on the other people are starving from hunger and poverty. One reason for this, which he has discussed, is the difference in cultural and behavioral patterns regarding classes and communities like for example in Bengal rice are eaten and potatoes are not preferred. Now if rice cultivation comes to an end in Bengal, despite of potato cultivation and sufficient supply of potatoes, it would not be suitable to sit and wait for the rice, leaving potatoes behind, and wait for famine. This chapter covers a very broad range of ideas that extends to the problems of the trafficking in and smuggling of people, and poverty as a cause of displacement, refugees, internally displaced persons, and economically displaced persons. There are several refrains to incorporate better human rights and humanitarian laws into the work of assisting and resettling refugees and various sorts of displaced persons but unfortunately very little laws are practiced and followed in real life. That is the major dilemma Sen points out to be solved! (Viva Vox) The fourth chapter is all about the implementation of several policies and procedures to avoid starvation and famines. It sets out the human security challenges involved in helping poor and needy countries to recover from violent conflicts through peace-building procedure. Sen gives real life examples of starvation in this chapter as he mentions that there was a time in Ireland when one-fifth of the total population was wiped out with potato famine. She also talks about the food consumption. In chapter 5, Sen’s focus is on poverty and inequality. Sen stresses the importance of protecting the famine of poor against shocks and economic downturns. He in an earlier box makes the point that even where all people rise together in a growing economy, ‘when they fall, they tend to fall very divided’. This chapter underlines the important finding that poverty and inequality cut deepest in economic shocks and natural disasters. (Viva Vox) In chapter 6, he prescribes different prices quotations and effects of prices on the wholesale price. The worst epidemic in phase III of famine in Bengal is discussed along with a glimpse of some history on starvation. From Bengal it moved towards Calcutta where due to starving catastrophe 100,000 people were killed. After rice, wheat is discussed as a major food cash crop in Bengal. Exchange Entitlements regarding rural values are discussed and viewed in terms of agricultural aspect and labors. Different views on the nature of the natural disasters like cyclone, flooding and fungus diseases are discussed following with the disruption of the war, and the loss of Burma rice, that its primary cause is considered as one of the serious shortage in the total supply of rice available for consumption in Bengal as compared with the total supply normally available. It points out towards the relationship between health, poverty and violence but this time the violence is in the form of natural disasters, and one cannot help it, when its Mother Nature. In chapter 7 the history of starvation in Ethiopia is discussed, as in the past 15-20 years Ethiopian starvation has killed one third of the overall population. The natural disasters are discussed in detail like heavy rains which had disastrous effects on the lowlands and on highlands over the past few years. The drought in Wollo and the north-east broke is discussed due to which the big decline in terms of food output in the north-east took place. There was a major decline in food availability. Human beings are central in development whether they belong to any kind, community, race or culture. Indeed, they provide the natural dynamic of economic and social processes. One must denounce the existence of economic, financial and social mechanisms, which, although people manipulate them, often function almost automatically, thus accentuating the situation of wealth for some and poverty for the rest. These mechanisms, which are maneuvered directly or indirectly by the more developed countries, by their very functioning favor the interests of the people manipulating them. But in the end they suffocate or condition the economies of the less developed countries. (Kishore Thanawala) Justice will never be fully attained unless people see in the poor person, who is asking for help in order to survive, not an annoyance or a burden, but an opportunity for showing kindness and a chance for greater enrichment. It is not merely a matter of 'giving from one's surplus,' but of helping entire peoples which are presently excluded or marginalized to enter into the sphere of economic and human development. For this to happen it is not enough to draw on the surplus goods, which in fact our world abundantly produces; it requires above all a change of lifestyles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power, which today govern societies. (Kishore Thanawala) It is perhaps natural to view underdevelopment and poverty resulting therefrom as a failure to meet basic requirements of what may be called a ‘decent life.’ But the concept of a decent life is both time-specific and place-specific. Although it is true that the very existence of physical life implies in a nutritional, biological sense basic needs or requirements, a modern concept of poverty has a much broader interpretation of deprivation. It is generally agreed that poverty can be interpreted in an absolute as well as a relative context. (Kishore Thanawala) There has been a very high degree of variability in economic progress among different countries over time, it is unfortunately still true, as we noted earlier, that a significant proportion of the population in many countries lives under conditions of absolute poverty as interpreted in the early 1900s. Increased knowledge and awareness about living conditions in different societies brought about, among other things; by the telecommunication revolution has aroused expectations of poor, and not so poor, people everywhere. (Kishore Thanawala) Work Cited Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An essay on Entitlement and Deprivation Oxford University Press, 1982 Kishore Thanawala, Poverty and Development: Economics and Reality. Review of Social Economy. Volume: 50. Issue: 3. (1992). p 258 Viva Vox Populi. author, John B. Hay, Global Governance. Volume: 10. Issue: 2. (2004). p 247 Read More