There are some people who say that theyre concerned only with poverty but not inequality. But I dont think that is a sustainable thought. A lot of poverty is, in fact, inequality because of the connection between income and capabilityhaving adequate resources to take part in the life of the community.
Amartya SenBut the idea that I should be a teacher and a researcher of some sort did not vary over the years.
Amartya Sen80 percent of the export of armament in the world comes from the G8 countries. [The] United States alone exports about 50 percent of the world's armament, [for] which, of course, there has to be buyers, and the buyers are very terribly keen, very often military dictator[s] or sometimes not military dictator[s] but for military purposes. But the sellers are also promoting this trade. And two thirds of the arm exports go to developing countries. I'm in favor of putting a control on it, a ban on it.
Amartya SenEducation can really transform the insecurities in the world into a bigger vision of what we are as human beings.
Amartya SenFamines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence... they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and... a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have.
Amartya SenIn India, [in] the great documents like [the] Upanishads in eighth century B.C., you find some of the wisest [women] making great, learned speeches and then you worship them, but actually don't do very much about girls' education generally. So I think there has been a kind of dual presence of pain, respect, and saying you are great, etc., but not providing the basic facilities that make women able to lead the kind of life that they would like to and that men easily do.
Amartya SenTo say that certainly America was very lucky to get a large amount of land, and the native Indians were extremely unlucky to have white men coming over here, is one thing. But to say that the whole of the American prosperity was based on exploiting the indigenous population would be a great mistake.
Amartya Sen