China, Starvation, Sen (Was Why Decry the Wealth Gap?)

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Thu Jan 27 06:36:10 PST 2000



>On Tue Jan 25 2000, Brad De Long (delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>
>> Amartya Sen points out that democratic societies are inherently more
>> egalitarian than, say, Maoist ones: mass famines haven't happened in
>> democracies, while they happen with some frequency where the people do
>> not elect the government and the press is not free. And the relative
>> income gap between someone who has enough food to survive and someone
>> who does not is very, very large...
>
>Unless I'm misunderstanding, Sen seems to have at least once drawn the
>opposite conclusions: that Maoist society, while not democratic, was a
>step forward both in eqalitarianism and starvation proofing;

Let me ask him to reconcile the two...

Brad DeLong



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