POLS 2100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Amartya Sen, Plutocracy, Billie Holiday
31 Aug 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Readings on democracy: amartya sen on the economic benefits of democracy in india, mark leibovich on the plutocratic nature of american democracy, micklethwait and wooldridge on the economic benefits of authoritarian governments. Democracy is good and essential for development. Political rights significantly impact your economic wellbeing and helps avoid issues with development. Famines are avoided in democratic countries with meaningful elections and free press, but have occurred in almost every other country with no democracy. Democracy should be a central concern for developing countries. The leaders are held accountable and can"t avoid it. They think about their people and prepare for tragedy in advance. Free press is the early warning system. Between 2000 and 2012 the number of billionaires in the usa has doubled to 405 and those with fortunes larger than million has increased to 45, 650. Liberals would say that the state should not interfere with these people because the state"s job is not to create equality.
