Rising inequality of income and power, along with the recent convulsions in the finance sector, have made the search for alternatives to unbridled capitalism more urgent than ever. Yet there has been a global retreat by the Left: on the assumption that liberal capitalism is the only game in town, political theorists tend to dismiss as utopian any attempt to rethink our social and economic relations. As Fredric Jameson first argued, it is now easier for us to imagine the end of the world than an alternative to capitalism. Erik Olin Wright's "Envisioning Real Utopias" is a comprehensive assault on the quietism of contemporary social theory. Building on a lifetime's work analyzing the class system in the developed world, as well as exploring the problem of the transition to a socialist alternative, Wright has now completed a systematic reconstruction of the core values and feasible goals for Left theorists and political actors. "Envisioning Real Utopias" aims to put the social back into socialism, laying the foundations for a set of concrete, emancipatory alternatives to the capitalist system. Characteristically rigorous and engaging, this will become a landmark of social thought for the twenty-first century.

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Envisioning Real Utopias

There can be substantial debates on the particular functionings that should be included in the list of important achievements and the corresponding capabilities. This valuational issue is inescapable in an evaluative exercise of this kind, and one of the main merits of the approach is the need to address these judgmental questions in an explicit way, rather than hiding them in some implicit framework.2

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Choosing Dimensions: The Capability Approach and Multidimensional Poverty

Over the last decade Amartya`s Sen`s Capability Approach (CA) has emerged as the leading alternative to standard economic frameworks for thinking about poverty, inequality and human development generally. In countless articles and several books that tackle a range of economic, social and ethical questions (beginning with the Tanner Lecture `Equality of What?` delivered at Stanford University in 1979), Professor Sen has developed, refined and defended a framework that is directly concerned with human capabillity and freedom (e.g. Sen, 1980; 1984; 1985; 1987; 1992; 1999). From the outset Sen acknowledged strong connections with Adam Smith`s (1776) analysis of `necessities` and living conditions and Karl Marx`s (1844) concern with human freedom and emancipation. Later Sen (1993, p. 46) recognised that `the most powerful conceptual connections` (which he initially failed to appreciate) relate to Aristotle`s theory of `political distribution` and his analysis of eudaimonia - `human flourishing` (see Nussbaum, 1988; 1990).

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The Capability Approach: Its Development, Critiques and Recent Advances.

Objective: Despite decades of deinstitutionalization, individuals with psychiatric disabilities living outside the hospital may be described as in the community, but not of it. To effectively address the persisting problem of social exclusion of persons with psychiatric disabilities, new conceptual tools are needed. To address this need, a new definition of social integration is offered. Methods: The definition is based on data from a qualitative study. Data collection consisted of individual, unstructured interviews with 56 adults who have been psychiatrically disabled (N=78 interviews) as well as ethnographic visits to five service sites working to promote social integration for their users (N=8 visits). An interpretive approach was used to analyze the data. Results: Social integration is defined as a process, unfolding over time, through which individuals who have been psychiatrically disabled increasingly develop and exercise their capacities for connectedness and citizenship. Connectedness denotes the construction and successful maintenance of reciprocal interpersonal relationships. Social, moral, and emotional competencies are required to sustain connectedness. Citizenship refers to the rights and privileges enjoyed by members of a democratic society and to the responsibilities these rights engender. The definition calls for full rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Conclusions: The new definition sets an ideal, but not unrealistic, standard for social integration in the context of psychiatric disability. High standards encourage mental health professionals and policy makers to rethink what is possible for mental health services and to raise expectations for connectedness and citizenship among persons once disabled by mental illness. (Psychiatric Services 58:469–474, 2007)

Connectedness and citizenship: redefining social integration.

Identifying the particular contribution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to specific development goals has proven to be extremely difficult. This paper argues that instead of trying to make ICTs fit with a linear conceptualisation of impacts and an often economistic view of development, the field of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) should be used as a prime example of a development process which has to be analysed in a systemic and holistic way. Amartya Sen's capability approach offers a way of thinking about development not as economic growth, but as individual freedom. The Choice Framework is presented as a way of operationalising this approach and visualising the elements of a systemic conceptualisation of the development process. An individual case study, related to telecentres in rural Chile, is used to demonstrate the way the Choice Framework can be applied as a guide to a systemic and holistic analysis. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

ICT4WHAT?—Using the choice framework to operationalise the capability approach to development

Book Information Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach By Martha C Nussbaum Cambridge University Press Cambridge/New York 2000 Pp xxi + 312

J. Thompson

Papers

Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach