Quality of life is not economic growth but democracy
Nipawin - April 10, 2001 - By: Mario deSantis
derailed	It is strange how we can get involved into the most minute details of any concern and being derailed all the way from what is really important in these concerns. Some time ago, my wife Sharon asked me on how to cope in dealing with some professional concerns and disappointed she said
wrong	"if I do this I am told I am wrong, if I do that I am told I am wrong, what can I do."
democracy	I responded "just do the best you can do to feel good with yourself and work with others, and let things take their course." Yesterday morning, as I exchanged a few e-mails with Timothy Shire, Editor of Ensign, we covered few topics about our societal considerations of having a cashless society, of changing our mental models, of fighting poverty. Then all at once I realized that the strongest social problem was poverty and as a consequence I recalled Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen saying that in no country where there was an appreciation for democracy there has ever been a famine. Therefore, I must say that quality of life is not economic growth but democracy.
-------References on Amartya Sen:
	Democracy as a Universal Value, http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/jod/10.3sen.html
	Third Way for the Third World, by Akash Kapur http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99dec/9912kapur.htm
	An interview with Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of Development as Freedom, by Akash Kapur http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/ba991215.htm
	A small Biography of Amartya Sen, http://www.qinfo.com/finance/amartya-sen-nobel.html