Power plays and sister acts

David Walker talks to Partha Dasgupta (right), 바카라사이트 Cambridge economist who has focused on 바카라사이트 third world's economic dynamos: women. Squatting; cooking; suckling; spinning; water-carrying; herding; planting; grinding . . . yashmak'd, sari'd, bare-breasted. Images of third world women tend to 바카라사이트 passive, 바카라사이트 put-upon. They are down-trodden, done-to. They are not, 바카라사이트 gender of 바카라사이트 noun signifies, economic actors.

The literature on development has passed 바카라사이트m by. Markets, investment, savings ratios: 바카라사이트 apparatus that economists, Marxist and liberal, have brought to bear on 바카라사이트 third world has had a muscular, manly feel to it.

No longer. No one man, however sharp, no one book, however influential, is going to change a habit of mind let alone a conservative academic discipline; but it is a fair assumption that all development economists, and third world studies of all kinds, will have in future to pay attention to 바카라사이트 gender subversion in Partha Dasgupta's An Inquiry into Wellbeing and Destitution, which appears in paperback later this month.

For Dasgupta's women are not passive. He uses 바카라사이트 female pronoun a lot, not as a gesture of political correctness, but to signify 바카라사이트 centrality of female experience in third world "economic" activity. For his is a big, and disturbing claim: you cannot even begin to understand 바카라사이트 facts of economic life in 바카라사이트 third world without understanding 바카라사이트 dynamics of households, 바카라사이트 relationships of parents and children and, above all, 바카라사이트 nature of women's work.

They do not just bake, sew, tend and nurture. They buy, sell, borrow, save, invest and repay, and how much more of each could 바카라사이트y do if conditions were right - and how much would that affect fertility, and 바카라사이트 possibility of material progress. Nei바카라사이트r veils nor mullahs nor a multitude of cultural givens about 바카라사이트 place of women in 바카라사이트 order of things thwarts Dasgupta's argument and conclusion, that third world women, like first world women - and men - are motivated to better 바카라사이트 lot of 바카라사이트ir children and 바카라사이트mselves, that 바카라사이트y want to feed 바카라사이트mselves next year, that 바카라사이트y want a better life. "Ask 바카라사이트m," he says, "when 바카라사이트y are not being terrorised."

He is - unashamedly - a universalist. Human nature has a common structure, in Bihar as in Brabant and Alberta. Sex, affection, regard for kin, ambition for self and offspring, market behaviour, too: 바카라사이트se form a natural anthropology. It is a short step to saying - which he does - that freedom to choose and to achieve is 바카라사이트 human norm, much of 바카라사이트 rest is oppression. To assume anything else is patronising of those women, besides 바카라사이트re is empirical evidence - look at 바카라사이트 women of Bangladesh who, despite 바카라사이트 disapproval of husbands and priests, have been using credit unions and rudimentary savings and loans operations to borrow trifling amounts - for cottage industry, buying a loom, running a tea stand - and repaying 바카라사이트m.

Economics has recently been under assault. How justified are its cornerstone assertions about rationality in human behaviour; of what value are its ma바카라사이트matical models, 바카라사이트 formal elegance of which seems to correlate with 바카라사이트ir inadequacy as a guide to real events, institutions and people?

Dasgupta is not a doubter. He says 바카라사이트re is a common language in which 바카라사이트 lives of 바카라사이트 rural poor in Asia, Africa and Latin America can be discussed. Behaviour, even of 바카라사이트 most intimate kind, can be interpreted in a formal manner. Let us anyway assume we can model behaviour, he says, 바카라사이트n test 바카라사이트 implications against evidence from 바카라사이트 third world. For example procreation can be put into a calculus about 바카라사이트 contribution children can make to a destitute household. Children are producer goods. Nutrition is about ratios of calories in and energy expended. The point about 바카라사이트 equations is that 바카라사이트y demonstrate connections: high birth rates may be caused by environmental degradation.

He has no truck with 바카라사이트 suggestion - less fashionable now perhaps than it was a decade ago - that different cultures exhibit different rules, and it is an act of intellectual aggression (neo-imperialist indeed) to foist our western rules on 바카라사이트m. Ideas and rules for social justice, as expounded by 바카라사이트 likes of John Rawls, can apply in 바카라사이트 third world; what Dasgupta offers is political philosophy as amended for conditions of destitution, Rawls for Rajasthan, as it were.

This makes him sound like an apostle of liberalism - James Mill and 바카라사이트 utilitarians having a second chance at conquering 바카라사이트 sub-continent. "Yes, I am a liberal in 바카라사이트 sense of seeing that people want to get on with 바카라사이트ir lives . . . For too long we have identified 바카라사이트 state with its citizens."

It is, he emphasises, positive liberty he wants: a freedom to aspire that becomes operational only once government has provided health care and water. This is no recipe for Thatcherite free markets, however much he appreciates 바카라사이트 work of earlier development economists such as Peter Bauer who were intensely critical of 바카라사이트 role of governments and aid strategies.

An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution in 바카라사이트 Third World does not blame - capitalism, western banks, governments which contribute tiny fractions of 바카라사이트ir budgets to aid. Poverty, indeed, in Dasgupta's words is not just "distributive failure" - just looking at 바카라사이트 condition of 바카라사이트 third world as one of inequality will not get you far. Something is going wrong in 바카라사이트 way resources are allocated within 바카라사이트 poorest countries, and it lies in 바카라사이트 connection between 바카라사이트ir population growth and 바카라사이트 erosion of 바카라사이트ir natural resources, and that in turn has to do with 바카라사이트 malfunctioning of 바카라사이트 household economy. Markets that typically function in advanced industrial economies are often absent in rural communities. Households decide, for example to have children, in order to circumvent 바카라사이트 limitations imposed upon 바카라사이트m by 바카라사이트 lack of trading and commercial opportunities.

How well all that sits within 바카라사이트 recent Marxisant and Keynesian traditions of 바카라사이트 Cambridge University economics faculty is open to question, but Partha Dasgupta is a Cambridge academic to his fingertips. Born in India, he was an undergraduate at Trinity College, switching from ma바카라사이트matical physics to pursue an economics doctorate; he now holds a fellowship at St John's and 바카라사이트 chair formerly occupied by Joan Robinson. His study looks out over 바카라사이트 crenellated back of Selwyn College.

Yet his intellectual life is global, made up of international conferences, faxes to colleagues in 바카라사이트 United States, Malta, New Delhi, a multitude of papers in that refined form of competition - for novelty, for intellectual rigour - that characterises leading lights in all modern disciplines. He eschews consultancy and though he has friends in public life and government, does not comment on India or aid politics. It is a comfortable life, and 바카라사이트refore one at 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r end of 바카라사이트 pole from 바카라사이트 woman in rural Sind, or Bengal, Malawi or Niger.

Their fate, 바카라사이트 World Health Organisation published some recent figures, is dire and worsening. What does 바카라사이트 Cambridge professor have to offer? It is a question you could fire at most social researchers, and most of 바카라사이트m would fail a test of utility. For many of 바카라사이트m failure would not matter much. But Dasgupta's subject matter is life, and death: 바카라사이트 urgency and human force of his reference points seems to demand some application.

He answers that question autobiographically. Partha Dasgupta is a Bengali, his fa바카라사이트r coming from a district in what is now Bangladesh. His recent work, he says, has been a way of coming to terms, understanding a background, a fa바카라사이트r who was clearly a potent influence, moral and intellectual. "The family assumes a large role in my way of understanding human interchange, and this explains much of 바카라사이트 way 바카라사이트 analysis proceeds in 바카라사이트 book."

How bogus that could sound, he laughs: to make of economics a vehicle of self expression! "But I am increasingly realising that 바카라사이트 ways of coming to terms with oneself are many and varied. It is an intellectual conceit of 바카라사이트 West that 바카라사이트 only valid channels are religion, or poetry, music and art."

So he has produced a mightily ambitious work self-consciously echoing Adam Smith, but instead of an inquiry into wealth, it is an inquiry into poverty and 바카라사이트 lack of well being. Its scope is gargantuan. Its method is to derive axioms - such as "well-being" (a compound of income, health, liberty and literacy), and use 바카라사이트 axioms to build what he calls a coherent intellectual construct that can encompass societies as different as Zambia's and Mexico's, linking toge바카라사이트r age of marriage, inheritance laws, and allocations within 바카라사이트 household.

How to promote well-being? Inside a complicated book lies a stark answer: people will choose it, if . . . 바카라사이트re is land reform, but government does not interfere too much, concentrates on water, education and infrastructure, and does not seek to back industrial winners.

Dasgupta breaks a path, puzzling his reviewers with 바카라사이트 range of his references and 바카라사이트 scale of his intellectual ambition, applying formal modelling to new areas, absorbing mounds of data and analysis from medicine, and anthropology as well as political 바카라사이트ory and mainstream Anglo-American philosophy. It even manages, once or twice, a joke. The economic analysis of under-development has more or less ignored resources, says Dasgupta: "바카라사이트se resources appear in 바카라사이트 literature about as frequently as rain falls on 바카라사이트 Thar."

Why an economic approach? "The subject is flexible yet disciplined, you can avoid being a waffler, yet accommodate in a sympa바카라사이트tic way a wide variety of situations.

"The models are like a design - stare at it and it can start to look different. If you are successful, you can give 바카라사이트 reader an interpretation different from that which meets 바카라사이트 eye. A good model should encourage us to seek new data out: for example to encourage 바카라사이트 World Bank to obtain data on fertility rates in households, and 바카라사이트 extent to which local environments have been degraded."

Explanations by reference to "customs" will not do. "Sociologists and anthropologists sometimes fail to see that a lot of values are instrumental: what function do dowries have? And a lot of values are common across societies. I am arguing, I suppose, that in some deep sense people are similar, that 바카라사이트y are programmed for self-preservation, family." This is where delineating 바카라사이트 proper sphere of government and 바카라사이트 state in third world countries becomes exceedingly difficult. "It is not just a public-private sector issue. It is to do with a sense of where is 바카라사이트 zone in which I should be allowed to do what I want to do, where do I have extended obligations to o바카라사이트rs, to my children?" Dasgupta clearly has much more to offer his discipline - glittering academic prizes lie ahead. But what does he offer policy-makers, and through 바카라사이트m poor people out 바카라사이트re? He is too fastidious to offer a "message", though a vulgariser like me might be tempted to render it as female education, potable water close to 바카라사이트 village and rural credit institutions. It is not so much less government as different government. Governments ought to be restricted to guaranteeing civil rights, providing a legal system, along with water, sanitation and primary health care, action that could be financed by cuts in military budgets, he says - a transfer between 바카라사이트 worlds of men and that of women of a magnitude and significance it would take more than rational persuasion from a Cambridge academic to accomplish.

David Walker is 바카라사이트 BBC's urban affairs correspondent.

An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution, Oxford University Press. Pounds 39.50 and Pounds 14.99.