Archives - Economics: Page 35
Author: amparo enriquez (Mon Aug 08, 2005 4:07 am)
Title: Experiencing Life: "To Have" vs. "To Be"
To Erick Fromm (1900-1980) the distinction between “to have” or “to be” has its deepest roots in the feeling of love of life and love of death “to be” is related to biophilia or love of life, while “to have” appears to be closer related to necrophilia or love of death.
“To have” or “to be” are to Fromm two different orientations of fundamental models of experiencing life. Each force manifest and express itself in the character of each person in different forms and degrees.
The distinction is not only a philosophical but also a practical one. In some societies the mode of “to have” appears to be of greater importance than the mode of “to be”. In his book “To have or to be,” the author explains the failure of the great promise of modern industrialized society to bring about happiness to everyone thru the acquisition of material goods.
Amartya Sen, who won a Nobel prize in economy in 1998, shared common beliefs with Fromm. Sen established a distinction between the life one lives and the material resources one has. Just as Fromm indicated in his writing, Sen believes humans beings need a minimum of material resources to be able to “have a life.” However once certain limit of material goods is attain other factors appear to be involved in relation to life’s quality and happiness.
Not too often economist cogitate about these issues. Although different formulas now a days are employed to measure poverty (depending on the criteria and parameters used) and research has been done to study and investigate the relations between material resources (to have) and quality of life and happiness (to be). In spite of that a great deal of more work needs to done in this area.
I agree that economist should do more work in this area. However the study of the India’s state Kerala by Amartya Sen is a good example of the kind of research that needs to be done.
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grow and be kind