The Entitlement Approach – A Case for Framework Development Rather than Demolition: Rejoinder
回应Elahi对Sen权利方法的批评，指出其错误引用和曲解，强调Sen的贫困观聚焦于穷人福祉而非非穷人的不适。
Elahi’s 2006 article subjected Amartya Sen’s entitlement approach to numerous criticisms: the approach contradicted the fundamental principle of market economy; it was based on a hidden hypothesis that income distributions in non-communist states are economically and politically optimal; and it contributed to a process of landlessness and pauperisation. Unfortunately, Elahi (2009) continues down the same path of unsubstantiated accusations in his response to my article, ‘The Entitlement Approach – A Case for Framework Development Rather than Demolition’ (Rubin, 2009). Elahi quotes Sen as saying ‘that people must not be allowed to become so poor that they offend or are hurtful to society. It is not so much the misery and plight of the poor but the discomfort and cost to the community which is crucial to this view of poverty. We have a problem of poverty to the extent that low income creates problems for those who are not poor.’ This is a blatant misquotation, as these are actually the words of Martin Rein (1970) – not Amartya Sen. Elahi then asserts that ‘Sen’s moral posture about the poor’ can be summed up in the following paragraph from Poverty and Famine: ‘To live in poverty may be sad, but to ‘‘offend or [be] hurtful to society’’, creating ‘‘problems for those who are not poor’’ is, it would appear the real tragedy’ (Sen, 1981: 9). This is a gross misrepresentation of Sen’s moral position generated by conveniently leaving out to the very next line, where Sen states ‘It isn’t easy to push much further the reduction of human beings into ‘‘means’’.’ Sen’s standpoint is precisely that ‘the focus of the concept of poverty has to be on the well-being of the poor’, and that the views expressed above are ‘grotesque’ and should be ‘dropped without further ado’ (Sen, 1981: 9–10). Thus, Sen’s stance on poverty and deprivation is the exact opposite of the questionable moral concern for the non-poor, which Elahi attempts to affix to Sen. The Nobel Prize Committee (1998) explicitly acknowledged Sen’s devotion ‘to the welfare of the