Perspective

Development Economists Social Change

47(3) 1–5
Need to be Interdisciplinary © CSD 2017
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
in their Thinking DOI: 10.1177/0049085717715555
http://sch.sagepub.com

Vibhuti Patel1

This scholarly and insightful paper makes a very important intellectual interven-
tion in today’s context of macroeconomic policies informed by the neoliberal
logic of development that political leaders and mainstream economists of nation
states all over the globe are imposing. The author, Professor M.A. Oommen, a
veteran development economist, rightly avers that economic theories have to be
grounded on social reality. His attention is on the ends and means of economics.
The author provides a detailed account of the theoretical unfolding of growth
theories starting from Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ to neoliberal thinking marked
by an ‘invisible heart’. He minces no words against economic thinking that
valourises the philosophy of ‘might is right’ and ‘market fundamentalism’. He has
made a strong case in favour of the human development approach and right-based
perspective and draws inspiration from theories of social justice, distributive justice
and gender justice. The author has provided insights into the capabilities approach
put forward by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum that advocates that capabili-
ties supply guidance superior to that of utility and resources and ensures universal
human rights. Thus right to food, shelter, education, freedom, justice and bodily
integrity get integrated into the human development growth models. He also avers
that this approach brings economics closer to ethics and justice.
The author criticises Lionel Robbins for dividing countries into ‘developed’ and
‘developing’ as this type of classification is ahistoric and asocial and camouflages
the colonial exploitation of the global south by the global north for over 200 years
in Africa and Latin America. Economic benefits derived by institutionalisation
of slavery in the African continent for over five centuries that provided primitive
accumulation of capital by the so-called ‘developed countries’ never get mentioned
in economics textbooks. Not only this, contributions of subsistence economies
in ensuring livelihoods and unpaid care economy are not only never recognised

1
Professor, Advanced Centre for Women's Studies, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute
of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Corresponding author:
Vibhuti Patel, Professor, Advanced Centre for Women's Studies, School of Development Studies,
702, 7th Floor, Prof. M. S. Gore Academic Block-1, New Academic building 2, Naoroji Campus, Tata
Institute of Social Sciences, V.N. Purav Marg, Deonar, Mumbai 400088, India.
Emails: vibhuti.np@gmail.com; vibhuti.patel@tiss.edu
2 Social Change 47(3)

or acknowledged, but they are also attributed traits such as ‘laggard’, ‘parasites’,
‘suckers’, ‘unskilled’ or ‘mere beneficiaries of the economic development’.
The author appreciates the theories that deconstruct ‘social exclusion’ of the
marginalised sections of society on the ground of caste, class, race, religion,
ethnicity, language, age and gender. He acknowledges intersectionality that creates
overlapping and interdependent structures and systems of disadvantage and
discrimination, subordination and subjugation. He also focuses on some concerns,
widely debated over the last 200 years, that is, evaluating individual and collec-
tive well-being about which the neoclassical marginalist school is quite evasive.
While deconstructing the development literature produced by the World Bank and
some UN agencies, the authors points out the influence of Vilfredo Pareto.
Professor Oommen makes a convincing argument for the affirmative action
taken by the state and non-state actors to compensate for historical injustices to
socio-economically deprived sections of society. He also emphasises the need for
equity to attain social justice and institutionalisation of structures and mechanisms
for inclusive polices for socio-economically excluded sections of the economy, as
free forces of market have not proved to be an equaliser for different sections with
mutually exclusive interests. He supports the capabilities approach because of its
usefulness in constructing a normative conception of social justice, in address-
ing gender and caste-based differentiations and subordination-domination power
relationships based on race, religion and location. The capabilities approach
advocates entitlements of each and every human being for his or her portion of
the development cake. This approach helps in evolving policies for social pro-
tection and social security to enhance capabilities of people to exercise greater
freedom and substantive justice. While reading this thought provoking article,
I was reminded of famous statement of Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stieglitz
(2007), ‘Development is about transforming lives of people, not just transforming
economies.’

Neoclassical versus Institutional Approach

The author is convinced that without getting out of the neoclassical and neoliberal
framework, it is not possible to build development theories and policies relevant
to human well-being. The neoclassical approach of consumer’s rationality (maxi-
misation of utility) and producers’ rationality (maximisation of profit) has come
under massive attack by dalit studies, tribal studies, ethnicity studies, disability
studies and women’s studies scholars as they find it ahistorical, simplistic, gender-
neutral and devoid of a human face. Its philosophy of laissez faire does not acknowl-
edge the unequal power relations determined by colonialism, neo-colonialism
and segmentation in the labour, factor and product markets based on caste, class,
ethnicity, race, religion, age and gender. As against this, the institutional approach
is found more realistic and hence appropriate as it takes into consideration histori-
cal, socio-cultural, geographical and political dynamics in economic analysis.
It is a matter of great distress that unsurmountable human miseries generated
by macroeconomic policies in the name of economic stabilisation, structural
adjustment programmes, resulting into drastic reduction in social sector budgets,
were and are still imposed on poor countries by the International Monetary Fund
Patel 3

and the World Bank. The economic hardships of a large majority of the toiling
masses have resulted in social and political unrest and the ruling elite have under-
mined the democratic ethos to ruthlessly crush the agitated masses. Neoliberal
macroeconomic measures and authoritarian political regimes go hand in hand.
A large majority of Nobel Laureates in Economics, except Professor Amartya
Kumar Sen and Professor Joseph Stieglitz, have not even demanded a review of
these anti-people, macro-economic measures that force the urban and rural poor
to live a dehumanised existence.
The author has critically reflected on concepts, theories, growth and develop-
ment models of established economists of the industrialised world who have a
agenda setting power in economics. What he misses out is the contribution of
gender economics as an academic discipline that has engendered economic think-
ing over the last three decades.

Critique of Conventional Economic Indicators

of Development
The bubble of ‘trickledown theory’ popularised during the post-War, colonial
period of the 1950s and 1960s burst by the 1970s as socio-economic inequalities
had exacerbated due to the concentration and centralisation of economic resources
in the hands of a microscopic minority in all countries. The conventional indicators
of development such as modernisation, technological development, mechanisa-
tion, automation, urbanisation, industrialisation were critiqued by gender econo-
mists as they not only bypassed and but also further marginalised women. Gender
economists locate the subordination of women in economy in the patriarchal
control over sexuality, fertility and labour of women through the five pillars of
male domination—family, kinship network, media, religion and state.
Gender economists have provided three approaches known as WID-WAD-
GAD to understand a woman’s role in the micro-meso and macro-economy.
There has been a coexistence of all these three approaches for women’s develop-
ment. WID, the Women in Development Model, explains the material basis for
women being treated as beneficiaries of the crumbs that are thrown at them—in
the margins of economy, as consumers of capitalist production and an auxiliary
labour force to be utilised in the crisis period and eased out the moment men are
ready to take over. The discourse revolves around the economic growth paradigm.
WAD, Women and Development Model, integrates women in development work
as active change agents. Affirmative action by the state and proactive approach
by civil society through non-state actors and women’s groups are advocated by
these models for the empowerment of women against the forces of patriarchal
class society. Voluntary organisations implementing this approach have become
powerful force during 1990s. GAD, the Gender and Development Model, is based
on an understanding of gender relations and empowering the weak (who can be a
male or a female).
Gender is socially constructed and gender relations are power relations. Gender
economics power is an important analytical category. Explicit measures of gender
inequalities are sex-ratio, literacy rates, health and nutrition indicators, economic
4 Social Change 47(3)

opportunities, wage differentials and ownership of land and property. The implicit
relations are those embedded in relations of power and in hierarchies are more
difficult to measure. Located in households, in kinship networks, in communi-
ties, in custom, religion and culture, these intra-household inequalities result in
the unequal distribution of care and nurturance, opportunities and power, control
over resources and decision-making, dependence rather than self-reliance as well
as unjust-unequal distribution of work, drudgery and even food. The overwhelm-
ing structures of patriarchy crush the potential of a large majority of women under
its weight through the control of women’s destiny throughout her life cycle, from
womb to tomb. ‘Super women’ who are able to look after the interests of each and
every stake holder are survivors in this model. In the Indian context, women’s
predicament in the economic development is determined by the complex interplay
of power relations based on class, caste, ethnicity and religion.

Caste and Gender Based Division of Labour

In South Asia, the caste and gender based division of work has existed in all
societies for thousands of years. It is based on the ideology of male dominance,
occupational segregation, caste and social norms of ‘purity and pollution’, institu-
tionalisation of untouchability and segregation based on sex and caste. It is also
based upon the notion that women are physically weaker than men and are not
suited for physically arduous tasks. Women’s biological tasks of monthly menstrua-
tion and pregnancy confined them to subsistence economy, such as lowly paid
agricultural work, handicrafts and also household work.

Gender and the Process of Economic Development

The incorporation of subsistence economies into ‘modern’ market economies
has brought into question the traditional gender based division of labour as an
organising principle in the rural and urban sector because of the basic injustice it
perpetuates. Women end up doing the least skilled work and are underpaid or are
expected to contribute to survival needs of the family without any corresponding
benefits. Esther Boserup (1970) in her pioneering work brought to the fore,
African women’s crucial contribution towards food security and explained the
political economy of polygamy in Africa that allowed men to concentrate and
centralise economic resources through unpaid and backbreaking labour of women
and children in the subsistence economy that did not have much animal resources
or agrarian technologies for the cultivation of land.

Visibility of Women in Statistics and Data System

For the effective execution of macro-policies such as the National Perspective
Plans and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is a need for an accurate
data base, area studies and time allocation studies, studies on energy expenditure
Patel 5

and food consumption patterns among different communities, public utility ser-
vices such as education, transport, sanitation and public health. Gender econo-
mists have done pioneering work to understand the demographic profile of women
and sex ratio. Formulation of gender aware data system on literacy, education
level, employment and earnings, health and well-being helps proper planning and
policy making for empowerment of women. Inter-district, inter-state and cross
country comparisons of women’s empowerment are obtained from the gender-
related development index (GDI). GDI owes its origin to its precursor, the human
development index (HDI), three main components of which are per capita income,
educational attainment and life-expectancy which is a proxy for health attain-
ment. Gender disparities are measured keeping these three indicators in mind.
The current development debate has resulted in the generation of meaningful
indicators of human development. The comparative data of 130 countries, regard-
ing the HDI and GDI, reveal that gender equality does not depend entirely on
the income level of society. So high economic growth alone cannot and will not
guarantee the development of a majority of the world’s population (Patel, 2002).

Contemporary Concerns
The human development approach which focuses on demographic, health, educa-
tional and human rights profiles have revealed that there is an urgent need to re-
examine this approach by conducting participatory action research and rapid rural
appraisal not by social scientists alone but in collaboration with other professionals
such as scientists, doctors, occupational health and safety experts, engineers and
lawyers who believe that like them, citizens from the subsistence sector also have
a right to enjoy the fruits of economic development in terms of food security, safe
transport, clean environment, secure housing and healthy life. Thus development
economists have to be interdisciplinary in their thinking and get out of playing with
Lego games of model building based on abstractions and generalisations. Professor
Oommen’s article provides rich food for thought in this direction.

References
Boserup, E. (1970). Women’s role in economic development. London: George. Allen &
Unwin Ltd. 
Patel, V. (2002). Women’s challenges of the new millennium. Delhi: Gyan Publications.
Stieglitz, J. (2007). Rich countries, poor people? New Perspective Quarterly 24(1), 7–9.