Two years ago, at the conclusion of a trip to Shanghai, I was on my way to Hongqiao airport when I passed a road sign that symbolized prosperity and modernization. I saw an enormous signboard arching across the wide road. Just a few large characters were written above -- "
This English is worth translating back into Chinese because it has another layer of meaning that the original Chinese lacks. The English sentence literally means, "development is the argument that can't be refuted." But all arguments are supposed to be refutable. An argument that can't be refuted isn't an argument; it is dogma. I discuss this bilingual slogan not out of an interest in translation, but rather because this example can serve as a prelude to discussion about the topic of development and freedom.
"Irrefutability" doesn't mean that counter-arguments don't exist. It means they aren't permitted, and this spirit of not permitting counter-arguments symbolizes the loss of civil rights and the lack of basic freedoms in China's society. The control of public debate and the closure of avenues to participation in public-policy making also symbolize a policy-making system that only emphasizes development and doesn't take freedom seriously. This policy-making system tells people that the policies from above can only be correct.
No wonder T. H. Huxley, in his essay The Coming of Age of `The Origin of Species,' said, "it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions." As long as "the hard principle of development" is a superstition that can't be refuted (of course, we shouldn't forget that the "hard principle" of linking up with world markets was once considered imperialist heresy), development that lacks freedom won't be viable in the long term.
"Without basic freedoms, what is the point of develop-ment?" This is the basic question asked by the 1998 Nobel laureate in economics, Amartya Sen, in his book Development as Freedom, which was based on a series of lectures he gave at the World Bank. His primary argument in this book is that the expansion of freedom should be viewed both as the primary end and the principal means of development. He says, "Development consists of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave people with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency." This is altogether a new way of evaluating development.
Sen goes on to say, "Focusing on human freedoms contrasts with narrower views of development, such as identifying development with the growth of gross national product, or with the rise in personal incomes." If we took freedom as the goal of development when evaluating development results and making development policy, Sen believes, many societies would enjoy better development, and even more importantly, more people would benefit from the outcomes of development.
From Sen's point of view, freedom can be measured as the presence of the following societal arrangements: political freedoms (in the form of elections, political parties, public discussion forums and a free press), social opportunities (in the form of education and health care), and economic opportunities (in the form of economic security, the freedom to work, trade and consume).
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