Our world needs more critical thinking and more robust arguments because economic growth has not only been enhancing income inequality but is keeping a large segment of the population deprived of basic education, health care and livelihood opportunities. Conventional economists have been of the view that either growth will percolate to pull poor out of poverty or redistribution of wealth will extend much-needed basic education and health care to the deprived.
Despite a growing consensus that neither of the two options has favored the poor thus far, the widespread use of economic achievements as a measure of country's progress continues to persist. How have the world’s poor been surviving on a daily basis is least of its concerns! In recent memory, the Sarkozy Commission has attempted to question the economic growth paradigm. It found that the benefits of increased wealth do not reach the poor because these are first usurped by the elites. Redistribution at best remains a good intent!
Citing the case of Vasanti, who was physically and economically abused by her alcoholic husband, Martha Nussbaum argues that only by creating and strengthening the capabilities of the poor can their dignity and self-respect be restored. With support from the Self-Employed Women's Organisation (SEWA) in Ahmedabad, Vasanti not only realized her potential but could put the same to effective use in discovering a dignified existence. Ascertaining what is a person ‘able to do and to be’ holds the key to understanding the Capability Approach, the alternate model to assess human development that Nussbaum has been working for over two decades.
Capability as a means of progress has been central to all cultures. Development (growth) as a normative concept, on the other hand, undermines capabilities and hence human dignity. For Nussbaum, it is people who matter ultimately; profits are only instrumental means to human lives. Human development must do justice for both humans and non-humans, enabling people to live full and creative lives. In an era of perpetual inequity, Nussbaum demonstrates, through narratives of individuals, that our idea of development ought to focus on the lives of the individuals and the way they actually live....Link
Creating Capabilities
by Martha C. Nussbaum
Harvard University Press, USA
Extent: 237, $22.95
True to its name, New Society Publishers are surely into the business of spreading 'good'. Else, it won’t have been as eager in getting ‘Small Stories, Big Changes' across to this reviewer. Fourteen ordinary folks narrate their unique 'inner' journeys that inspired and empowered them to pioneer extraordinary ideas of change towards creation of a better world. Lyle Estill's conviction that 'evolution has its own logic that favors the agile, the adaptable, and smart over the complacent, powerful and stupid' has guided him to pick ordinary folks of extraordinary imagination, whose stories of small possibilities are big on hope.
The stories clearly demonstrate that 'it is possible to do well while doing good'. One only needs a liberal dose of inspiration and a sense of clear direction. Award winning author Nicola Ross opines: inspiration comes through challenge. A big proponent of sabbaticals, Ross argues that 'inspiration only happens when you get out of your comfort zone and plunk yourself down into unknown territory'. Green developer Tim Tobe, organic innovator Eric Henry and watershed warrior Elaine Chiosso have had their share of challenges before coming out good with their innovations. Each of the stories of grass-root change propounds that while we may not control the forces changing our lives, we can indeed influence those forces.
The message that comes clearly from these heart-warming stories is that if you are in the field of sustainability, you ought to have patience. Else, mixing two parts of hydrogen with one part of oxygen could have created water on demand, anytime anywhere. But 'there is a third thing that makes it water', said imaginative novelist D H Lawrence, 'and no one knows what it is.' In each of the stories there is that 'third thing' that has been left to the readers' imagination.
Each story has an interesting, somewhat anecdotal, introduction followed by the story in the words of its author. More than creating smart influences, the stories packed in the volume offer an exercise in defining the problems in the first place. It goes to the credit of Lyle Estill in letting the reader know that the cause of all problems is solutions and yet we need solutions!....Link
Small Stories, Big Changes
by Lyle Estill
New Society Publishers, Canada
Extent: 200, Price: $17.95
