The Underlying Wealth

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“The real wealth of a nation is its people. And the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives. This simple, but powerful truth is too often forgotten in the pursuit of material and financial wealth” (Nussbaum 1).

This quote in the opening lines of Martha Nussbaum’s book, “Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach” really stood out to me not only because of the truth and meaning behind the words, but also because it brought me back to the first day of class. It wasn’t that long ago that, as a class, we sat around and discussed our beliefs regarding meaning and whether life had a purpose. Personally, I believe we ascribe meaning to different events, people, and other things that affect our own lives. The reason I think we do this is to motivate ourselves and give ourselves a purpose. As humans, we often want to have an end goal. I truly believe everything happens for a reason just based on what has happened in my own life and consequently, though I know I may not have all the reasons figured out yet, I believe there are reasons that exist and usually that is enough for me. So, I personally tend to see wealth differently. Being an economics minor though I do understand that the typical definition of wealth is economic and has to do with an accumulation of an abundance of resources.  However, this is not how it should be. We tend to overlook that fact that Gross Domestic Product (GDP)  may increase each year, but it’s only a number. Relying on our conventional economics and development will fail because in the process any balance necessary for human well-being is lost. Development needs to embrace all aspects of human existence. Furthermore, I think we need to realize that without the people the material and financial wealth amounts to nothing. It is our natural resources and people that seem to really define a nation.

Recently, in some of my economics classes this semester we’ve discussed economic theory, which tends to involve simply an exchange of money, but there is so much more to quality of life. We have to integrate family values, morality, culture, health, the environment, education, and so many other aspects that are extremely important.  There are so many human values that GDP is unable to express. Some of these include health, a clean environment (clean water and clean air for example), love, hope, and even family. Economics suggest that people are better off when the market forces create an efficient economy. What I’ve found this correlates with John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian idea of the greatest good for the greatest number. Economically, this means the greatest number of people consumes the greatest quantity of goods. However, Nussbaum does a very good job in bringing to light particular examples in this book, which I particularly enjoyed because it narrowed the big picture. Having a face and anecdote made it simpler to put the issue into perspective. So, Nussbaum uses an example of a woman, Vasanti, to drive home the point that an increase in GDP per capita does not reach her life or solve her problems. That is not to say that increasing wealth is a bad thing though. That is not the meaning to take away from the reading. Rather, what I derived was that increased wealth is in fact good as it may allow government to fund and adopt policies that could make a difference in the lives of poorer, oppressed, or struggling people, such as Vasanti. That, however, is not usually the case, because distribution of that GDP is not taken into consideration. Subsequently, what does that leave us with? It’s easy to come to the conclusion, from other readings and experience volunteering with the I Have a Dream Foundation , that despite increases in GDP, there is a significant percentage of people deprived of opportunities, especially when it comes to basic education.

Now looking at education from the perspective that we are lacking in the sense that we have focused for too long on an approach that defines wealth in terms of the amount of money people have, when we need to be focusing on individual achievement in terms of the opportunities that present themselves to people.

Nussbaum’s outline of the Capabilities Approach (also known as the Human Development Approach) was very interesting and I think that its key points are important. There needs to be emphasis on the fact that the key factors affecting quality of life are plural and distinct, meaning we cannot reduce them to one single metric without distortion in some sense. This “approach takes each person as an end, asking not just about what the total or average well-being but about the opportunities available to each person. It is focused on choice or freedom. It thus commits itself to respect for people’s powers of self-definition” (Nussbaum 18). This should be a focus in many of the schools. After only volunteering a total of two times thus far with the I Have a Dream kids, I am seeing a general interest in learning. Many of the kids I have read with are excited to read and talk about their favorite authors, books, and express eagerness to accomplish a lot in their lives. They want to be successful and thanks to programs like I Have a Dream, they have that opportunity. However, it does not seem like they have that same support in school. When talking about classes, many of the children I have talked to seem to dislike their teachers. When I say this I am not saying that the teachers are bad. I remember when I was younger I was not always the biggest fan of all my teachers. Though, my point is that they do not seem to have a lot of incentive coming from the classroom inspiring them to do their work. It seems to be the I Have a Dream Foundations incentives, such as the dot system with rewards (sleepovers, treats, etc…) and punishments (sentences, less play time, etc…) motivates many of the kids. There have been a few instances where the kids I am tutoring do not have the opportunity to get through all their work before they leave and the disappointment in their faces is obvious. The kids show the same enthusiasm as we saw last week in the Waiting for Superman film. It is our education system that is failing these motivated kids. In working with these children I am seeing how their development and achievements are going to benefit them to a greater extent than GDP or financial wealth.