Questions

Rosling- Preconcieved ideas:

Most people assume that the Western World as a complete whole is richer, healthly, and more advanced than tha 3rd world. This is sometimes true when looking at large data sets that encompass wide areas, but there are more nuiances making it generally untrue. For instance, the top 20 percent of people that live in South Africa are certainly richer and have a high quality of life than the bottom 20% of people in the United States. Also, there are many examples in which the Western World simply has “worse stats” then developing countries. Many people assume Western Countires have lower child mortality rates than developing countries, but this is untrue (in some cases).

Rosling- Wealth and health:

There are trends that show first having good health and education lead to higher levels of wealth (they also lead to higher quality of life for people). On the graph ROsling showed, countries who focused on wealth first did not reach as high of a level and health never rose. Whereas, those that improved health first saw much higher levels of wealth and increasing improvements in health. I believe improving healthcare and education in certain areas is probably not as expensive as many believe, but any costs are certainly outweighed by the overall increase of wealth that would occur.

Sen- What is development:

Sen’s definition of development hinged on freedom. He believes development involves broadening the freedom of individuals is underdeveloped nations. To illustrate, this includes the freedom to be educated, the freedom to be fed, and the freedom to be happy. This is a broader definition of development. Many people will focus on GDP when measuring development, but Sen’s veiw focused more on the betterment of people which will eventually translate into economic growth and industrialation.

Sen- Sources of unfreedoms:

A clear source of unfreedom is oppressive or dictoral governments. The citizens who live in countries with such a power structure are do not have the social freedom to disagree with the government and in many cases dissenters could be killed. Economic unfreedoms are also common: in many developing countries it is impossible for people to aquire jobs or grow enough food to sustain themselves, leading to worse health care and education. Finally, untreated epidemics and other health crisis are unfreedoms beacause they do not have the freedom of health because there is no way to receive appropriate care, and this haves wider effects across other sections of unfreedoms.

Sen- Generically against market:

Simply, markets are not all bad. Markets are a complex system that can provide oppurtunities, freedoms, and in some cases lead to equality. Now, that is not to say that markets are infintely good, government programs are still needed to assist when market failures occur. Overall, markets can be a source of good. An effective market can also cause freedom of labor. Sen also makes a anology saying generically against conversations, even if they occasionally have negative effects, is irrational, as it would be to be generically against markets.

Sen- Condorcet and Mathaus:

Condorcet beleived that birth rates would decrease as sercurity and freedom increased. On the other hand, Mathaus beleived people would continue having children as long as resources are plentiful. Condorcet is correct. There is a definte correlation between decreasing birth rates and increasing affluence. The average US citizens has greater access to resources than a subsistance farmer in Africa, yet the birthrate in the US is lower than Africa, illustratin this correlation. In fact, a major approach to address population problem is to increase quality of life (and access to contraceptives) in order to decrease fertility rates.