Thesis – Antithesis
Human mind has an amazing capability to encode, store and retrieve information in memory. However, what I find more fascinating is the way we think and construct this knowledge through cognitive processes. Cognition is not necessarily cumulative, as most people assume. It is more than accumulation of ideas and generating new ones out of these ideas, it also involves very complex processes where one piece of information can survive by negating the other. If blogs in particular, and internet as a scale free network in general, represents how we think, this blog would include not only cumulative flow of ideas, but also marginal nodes, oppositions, or even negations. In that case, we cannot only talk about what capability approach IS, we will also need to discuss what capability approach is NOT.
“CA is all about open dialogue, education and political rights.”
First of all, Sen’s capability approach is not an overarching theory – as the names implies, it is a framework/approach to understand human development; it functions as a basic foundation for research, social policy, and legislation. Theories have basic premises that are applicable and generalizable to make predictions about certain phenomena. Although capability approach offers a new approach to understand (and measure) poverty and human development, it does not provide a systematic conceptualization about the mechanisms through which they occur or the ways they are maintained. This does not necessarily mean that our discussions are atheoretical – obviously, our arguments are Deweyian and almost all posts in this blog are somehow related to American pragmatism. Taken together, we are talking about capability approach from a pragmatist perspective in general. I think we need to acknowledge this first.
In that case, potential misconceptions may occur about what capability approach is. Reducing capability approach to provision, availability or accessibility of political and educational rights in society is dangerous. These so-called instrumental freedoms are necessary but not sufficient to achieve human development and capability. Freedoms depend on social and economic arrangements as well as political and civil rights while social institutions also contribute to enhance and guarantee the substantive freedoms of individuals, seen as active agents of change, rather than passive recipients of dispensed benefits. In that case, freedoms, as principal means of development, are expanded and maintained in a bottom-up (i.e. human beings are active agents of change) and top-down processes (i.e. social policy, and institutions are involved), simultaneously. Therefore, open dialogue or educational/political and civil rights are only pieces of the big picture, whereas the frame and the background are forgotten if one only focuses on instrumental freedoms.
One particular example comes from Gulen movement which offers a ‘moderate Islam’ model integrated with traditional Sufi values http://www.fethullahgulen.org/. The basic premises of the movement include a) pluralism and tolerance to multiculturalism, b) interfaith and interreligious open dialogue, c) priority of higher education especially for women and the economically disadvantaged groups, and d) freedom of speech. The movement applies these principles by organizing national and international conferences, workshops, and seminars, offering scholarships and fellowships for higher education, establishing schools all around the world (from Kenya to Russia, from Turkey, Germany to USA), and having mass media to disseminate the ideas of the movement through TV/radio channels, newspapers, websites, and blogs worldwide. At first sight, the movement with its principles, activities, and organizational structure seems to fit what capability approach offers as means of development. However, a closer look at the Gulen movement reveals close sectarian ties within the community, massive psychological control over the followers, economic and social dependence on leaders – all implying subtle authoritarianism hidden behind the mask of ‘dialogue.’ Going back to the arguments we made about women wearing ‘burka’ – the extent to which these women were ‘free’ in this movement to choose to be veiled is questionable. On one hand, the premises fall under capability approach, on other hand the followers may have the ‘pedogogy of the oppressed’ without being aware of it. You may think this is an argument that is out of the tangents of the class discussion and your daily life – unfortunately it is not! I am talking about a massive, cross-cultural, fundamental Islamist movement that has hundreds of schools worldwide. In Columbus only, they hold 3 schools, and in OSU, they have approximately 100 graduate students under their scholarship. The flyers you see on bulletin boards in OSU informing you about ‘seminars on veiled women’ or ‘Sufi poetry’ come either from ‘Students For Dialogue’ or from ‘Scioto Education Foundation’ – both are active organizations associated with the religious sect. I am talking about a huge political, religious and business organization that owns many international brands in the market, including Godiva. This movement gained its power particularly from its emphasis on freedom of speech and open dialogue. My key point is that utilizing democratic rights does not necessarily create democratic movements – as this example illustrates (i.e. sect has a hierarchical structure that reinforces authoritarianism). This is what capability approach is NOT. It also shows how it can go wrong in political arena once it is reduced to simply instrumental freedoms without participatory democracy…

“CA is almost a new ‘welfare state’ approach to achieve social equality.”
I have to admit that I read this misconception several times in a variety of articles in the literature. Although Sen offers a whole chapter in his book to argue about how capability approach is NOT utilitarian or it is NOT pure welfarism, this reductionist approach to CA is still prevalent. One particular reason could be that the instrumental freedoms Sen is talking about coincide with what welfare states are ‘supposed’ to provide to their citizens. For instance, the concept of ‘social wage’ suggests that employees ‘wage’ does not only refer to certain level of payment or economic income, but it also includes certain benefits or rights that do not necessarily have material value (such as status or prestige of the profession, legal protection by law etc.). Even though ‘social wage’ may parallel what CA offers for human development (such as civil and participatory rights for citizens), it still implies a ‘top-down’ approach where state and institutions allocate resources to the citizens, and ‘provide’ or ‘give’ social and political rights. In CA, the process is obviously more reciprocal; it includes both top-down and bottom-up processes. Institutions are expected to ensure basic democratic and social rights whereas individuals are active agents in society. In addition, CA is much broader than traditional welfarism and integrates multifaceted and multidimensional change in various ecosystems, rather than economy or politics itself.

“CA and Sen’s ideas are close to Neo-Marxism.”
I think this is one of the most common misunderstandings of CA by the academic audience. There are definitely Marxist academicians and followers of Sen who took some basic premises of CA and integrated them with their own ideas. However, in its origin, I argue that Sen’s CA has nothing to do with Marxism. I almost felt like he is very cautious about not being labeled as a Marxist. It is also interesting that Sen offers an approach that is very ambitious to transform the society and it definitely has political consequences, but is timid about addressing the mechanism behind it. One example is the language Sen uses throughout his book, Development as Freedom. He uses terms such as ‘developing countries’ , ‘social exclusion’ or ‘human development’, but he NEVER uses the terms ‘third world countries’, ‘cultural imperialism’ or ‘post-colonialism.’ Let me just pick ‘developing country’ as an example. This is a politically-constructed term, utilized by World Bank and IMF especially after ‘90s to refer to countries whose economies are moving towards ‘achieving’ an economic/political/social state as strong as industrialized countries. Keep in mind, these countries are not identified as ‘underdeveloped’ which is another WB category referring to poor countries. The discourse behind this term is ‘developmentalism.’ – a really hot topic in political sociology as a Post-Fordist ideology. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmentalism)
This discourse stems from the idea that highly industrialized countries (i.e. US, Western European countries) have ‘achieved’ social, political, and economic development and are at peak of capitalism. The strategies they utilized to cherish this high industrialization serves as ‘model’ for other countries. It is almost like saying that ‘If they implement our strategies in their own countries, they will develop in the same way.’ To put it even more simply, developmentalism offers a one-size-fits-all model, almost a pattern, for these countries. The rules are implemented by World Bank and IMF who provide monetary founds to developing counties as long as they propose ‘developmental goals’ that fit this agenda. The problem with developmentalism was that it was an imposed model that fell short to address the needs of ‘third world countries.’ Think about the great economic crisis that hit Asian economy in late ‘90s. The developmentalist discourse before the crisis was suggesting that ‘Asia tigers’ (i.e. Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore etc.) were ‘miracle economies’ who were the fastest growing economies in Asia, and they succeeded to become highly industrialized countries. However, the crisis struck and revealed that economic and social development of ‘Asian Tigers’ did not change the fact that they were dependent on imperialist countries to survive in the global economy – they were not self-reliant at all. This was a crisis showing that developmentalist model simply failed! It was 1998 when the model and its applicability were being questioned in World Bank. Such a coincidence – on the same year, Sen was awarded with Nobel Prize in economics with his CA!
It is not surprising that UN accepted CA as a foundation for Human Development Indices and also for Millennium Development Goals (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/). CA filled in the existing gap in developmentalism and made it more acceptable for ‘developing countries.’ In the past, World Bank would provide funding to nation states to make investments in industrial economy (i.e. develop agricultural machinery, open factories etc.) and development was considered only in economic realm, geared towards increasing production, promoting new consumption patterns, and participation in international trade. However, this model was shattered down in the global economy where economic development was not enough for ‘developing countries’ to survive (i.e. Latin American countries). The solution was found in Sen’s CA which addressed the issue of development as a broader phenomenon. Sen argued over and over that development is inevitably related to freedom and democracy, in addition to economic and social growth. Now, in that discourse, World Bank provides micro credits/loans to the poor people in developing countries to achieve their ‘potential.’ The developmentalist discourse in that model still persists, it even gets stronger with the use of CA. Sen’s approach empowers masses to work towards a ‘universal golden standard.’ Again, it is not a coincidence that he devoted a whole chapter on universalism of certain rights and to Adam Smith to defend Capitalistic system. Sen is obviously pro-capitalist, but he wants morality, social equality, and participatory democracy to survive in that system. His goal is not to change infrastructure of the existing system or achieve revolution, but to provide reforms to keep the system going. Therefore, social classes, stratification or class conflict are never mentioned in this approach. Have you seen one single word on caste system in India and arguments about how this related to allocation of information?
Another example, he argues over and over again that famines occur not due to shortage of food, but due to limited access to information about resources, and he draws attention to the totalitarian regimes. I find this argument very convincing, but unfortunately missing. Obviously, countries do not exist in a vacuum as if they are detached from the global economy. I think famines occurred because the imperial powers oppressing and exploiting the resources of these countries ‘needed’ famines to maximize their profit at that time. The imperial power would, of course, need an authoritarian regime to achieve these goals – in that case, unfreedom is the instrument of oppression, not the end of it. Therefore, the famines occur as an inevitable consequence of a more macro level problem, the imperialism itself. The poverty itself, then, can be attributed to the dynamics of ‘new imperialism’ – exploiting the resources of a country not through coercive marital affairs or invasion of the territory, but through political, economic, social, and cultural means.
Taken together, Sen does not care about changing the mechanisms that cause and maintain unfreedoms (i.e. never talks about cultural imperialism). Therefore, CA is not more than a new approach to developmentalism. It would be unfair to call Sen a Marxist. Ironically, Marx talked a lot about social reforms (vs. revolution) in his manuscripts and cautioned against them since they interfere with the process moving towards revolution (see Chapter 1 in the link) http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm
Marx is obviously a modernist; he cherishes Bourgeoisie as a transformative, generative and productive social class who abolished the rule of aristocracy. He also cherishes accomplishments of capitalist system for its own sake (Interestingly enough, Sen mentions these points as well while he quotes Marx). BUT, for Marx, we need bourgeois and capitalist system as part of dialectic materialism to move towards revolution for proletariat. The instrument of change is class consciousness of the proletariat, the oppressed class in the capitalistic system. I think this implies one of the misconceptions about Sen’s CA. Obtaining information in a democratic society and education can bring consciousness about oppression and exploitation. However, in CA, this does not translate into being conscious of one’s own suffering associated with his/her social class. Marx would call Sen a bourgeois socialist, someone who tries to provide rights to the oppressed classes to maintain the integrity of the system, but inevitably block the ongoing process towards revolution. (See bourgeois socialism in Chapter 3) http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm
You may wonder why I went on and on arguing about this. It is because in class discussions I remember people talking about how much Freire and Sen overlap. I disagree strongly with this idea – Freire is very much into bringing foundational change to the system rather than reforming it! I would say he is close to Marx, rather than Sen. Arguing that his ideas parallel CA would be trying to fit him in a small box with SBH-like assumptions.
I am aware that this is an extremely long post – almost a paper. I was very hesitant to write it, thinking that there is something wrong with me that I think about negating ideas all the time. Possibly, I am brainwashed by these sociology electives I took in college and the effects of them still remain. This is what I believe: ‘Everything in life is political.’ The fact that it is only 5 of us in this class is political. We meet in outdoor locations for classes - this is political. Even the coffee you drink is political – have you ever thought why in Caribou, Starbucks or other cafes in US, you can never find Middle Eastern coffee even if this region is where coffee originated from before it was introduced to Greeks and was scattered around Europe? Have you ever thought why we drink so much coffee with sugar in academia? Anyways, as I said, I am brainwashed. I cannot read CA with an apolitical lens even if Sen tried really hard on this! Hopefully, Nussbaum will be different…