By Brian Carnell

Friday, November 19, 1999

In a review of Amartya Sen's book, Development as Freedom, James North maintains this view of the famine that hit Bangladesh in 1974:

No dictator stole food from the Bangladeshi poor in 1974. The normal functioning of the economy, with property rights respected, led to their deaths.

The only problem with this view is that 1974 is the year that Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Mujubur Rahma declared a state of emergency and banned opposition newspapers and parties. Mujubur turned around and nationalized about 85 percent of Bangladeshi industries (apparently, that is The Nation's idea of respecting property rights).

The 1974 famine was not an isolated incident, but instead part of a long trend in declining food production in Bangladesh following its independence from Pakistan. By 1979-81, per capita food production was 4 percent lower than it had been in 1969-71, and by 1989-91 had declined 8 percent from the pre-independence era.

I have not read Sen's book, but the idea that Bangladesh in 1974 was a libertarian haven where property rights were universally respected is inaccurate.

In fact according to North, Sen argues that the flooding of 1974 caused famine because the workers whose income depended on the gathering of rice saw their income level fall below the famine level. This may be true, but in making the argument against property rights North (and perhaps Sen) fails to note the extent to which massive government corruption and economic mismanagement limited the job opportunities and possibility of economic growth for those displaced workers.

Source:

Sen's Sensibility. James North, The Nation, December 6, 1999.

Discuss (0 Replies) | Printer Friendly