Introduction

In his Commodities and Capabilities (1985a), Amartya Sen argues that economic development should be viewed first and foremost as a process of expansion of people’s capabilities.1 The common practice of focusing on the growth of national production, he points out, may only too easily lead to a commodity-centred approach in which economic progress is pursued as an end in itself rather than as a means towards the higher objective of enriching human life. After all, the quality of human life is not determined by the commodities that people are instrumental in producing; nor is it determined by the goods that they receive —for instance as part of a basic-needs package. Rather, what matters is what people are capable of being, or doing, with the goods to which they have access.