Sen's 1997 work argues that the success or failure of international development cannot be measured by income alone. Having grown up in India, Sen brings his own understanding of poverty to the issue, arguing that the end goal of development must be human freedom. He supports this idea through his concept of "capabilities"—the capacity people have to do what they believe makes for a good life. Sen concludes that only by looking at the "capability set" of different societies is it possible to truly evaluate and compare relative freedoms and measure the real impact of development—and that democratic control is crucial for development to succeed in a meaningful way.