9: Sen's Unity of Well-Being

The purpose of life is to live well – to live fulfilling lives as imagined by free individuals and communities. This is what well-being is all about. Freedom provides the crucial nutrient for well-being. It needs to be complemented with autonomy to maximize its potency for enabling individuals and communities to live fulfilling lives.

A society that embraces diversity and supports it with freedom and autonomy will reap the benefits of this investment in the form of resilience, which in turn provides a bridge to sustainable well-being (Alesina & La Ferrara, 2005).

What's government (“public policy”) got to do with providing well-being to individuals and communities?