“So Sen is right that democracy can be pressed into the service of reducing injustice. Indeed this can happen against expectations. Had there been neoclassical economists around in the late eighteenth century, they would have scoffed at the possibility of abolishing the slave trade. In the absence of a system of multilateral enforcement, Britain had to bear the enormous expense unilaterally—over several decades—without any obvious prospect of a return. whether democracy fosters or hinders economic growth.”

—  Ian Shapiro

Review of The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen, Journal of Economic Literature (December 2011).

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Ian Shapiro 10
American political theorist 1956

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