ABSTRACT
The collapse of the Soviet Empire and its satellites has revived some age-old ideas in the social sciences. Development used to be perceived in narrow economic terms of per capita income, ratio of investment to income, the proportion of labour force in the industrial sector, the volume of steel output, and so on. Human development is about enabling people to have wider choice, choice about way of life, social relations, the kind of civil and political society that they wish to live in. Development is not a narrow economic process defined merely in terms of the availability of goods and services. It is a process of enrichment that spans social, cultural and political dimensions. A similar problem existed about political freedom, which is defined in two different senses, although the second sense has now receded from public debate. Freedom is difficult to define in any way that commands universal agreement; it is even harder to measure.
