Human rights: Food for a thought in crisis ‘HR and Capitalism’
HRR 758
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader addresses the thorny issue of whether, through pat solutions, we should overcome the crisis of Capitalism or rather exit from a Capitalism–in–crisis altogether. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
1. Capitalism represents the status in which an imposed and inflexible social legality has dominated man (and has curtailed his inalienable rights). [In Socialism, man is supposed to dominate social legality…].
2. Talking about legality: a) The capitalist exploits and will exploit the worker even if he does not consciously intend to do it –even if he pays lip service against this exploitation. This, since the objective laws of the capitalist system are inflexible; they leave no alternative: either the exploitation of the workers or the economic death of the entrepreneur. (Marta Harnercker, Chilean sociologist, 1937-2019) b) Politicians instrumentalize andmisuse existing legal institutions, procedures, and laws to exert political influence for which, certain politicians, present a tale of political fiction since it is not the truth that interests, but the manipulation* to divert from the substantive. (Luis Mesina)
*: An ancient Chinese proverb says that the less happy a man is, the louder his music is.
Overcoming the crisis of Capitalism or exiting altogether from Capitalism in crisis? (Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin, 1974)
3. There is no alternative: either we advance on the route of constructing a civilization liberated from the domination of capital or we fiddle with the interdependent ways** that help Capitalism-in-crisis get back on its feet. In capitalist societies, virtually everything progressively became/has become a commodity produced for the market. This unprecedented market dependence has generated a bogus competition, accumulation, and the maximization of profit by squeezing labor and nature ever more intensely. As the Greek proverb goes, whoever wants to be a politician, go to squares and markets.
**: Today, each capitalist is increasingly dependent on all capitalists. (M. Harnercker) Aristotle already knew that oligarchs from various countries will have more in common with one another than they will with their own people. (Timothy Snyder)
4. Ponder: If Capitalism has locked-in its command of the global economy so strongly, where does hope lie for breaking its control? How can we embark in actions that build on truly alternative approaches to, for instance, food provisioning without glorifying the ‘solutions’ that the global-industrialized-supply-system is seeking to install today in this domain? What ‘countermoves’ can we envisage that can avoid simply fiddling with the current crisis of Capitalism and help us exit altogether from this Capitalism-in-crisis? What is possible and what is necessary? What ought this transformation look like and how to achieve it? (Nora McKeon)
What to do: pick your choice (or your mix? Or neither?)
–Borrowing from Susan George, I confess: This review of options is brief to the point of a caricature.
5. Liberalism: Noting that consensus can become the prelude to betrayal, (Politika) it is important to note that, without a serious commitment to social welfare and redistribution schemes, liberalism itself has drifted into the world of far-right policies. There is no necessary contradiction between liberalism and the far right; liberalism is not a shield against fascism*** —and certainly not its antidote. (Vijay Prashad)
***: In places where they burn books (or bomb hospitals?), they end up burning people. (Heinrich Heine, German poet and writer, 1797-1856)
6. Marxism: Famous quotations/dreamy slogans are not enough to challenge Capitalism. As already Lenin said ****: A creative application of Marxist theory is needed. …and Mao added: Marxist theory should, therefore, not be treated as dogma, but as a guide for action. Much later, Che Guevara was of the opinion that you should be a Marxist as naturally as you are a Newtonian in physics or a Pasteurian in biology.
****: I cannot believe it, I here fall into the vice that Lenin denounced: using quotations…
7. Or perhaps a revolutionary approach?: Let us here start with Marx: A revolution is made by the underclass and not by the political powers-that-be (yet, a class you cannot find; it is a concept). Friedrich Engels added: Past is the time of superstitions that attributed to revolutions the perversity of a few agitators. Everyone knows today that behind every revolutionary convulsion there is a social need that anachronistic institutions cannot satisfy. And then again I go to Lenin*****: In times of revolution, the limits of the possible are dilated a thousand times. [Is it too difficult to see how all the above (and what comes next) applies to our work on human rights?].
*****: Neither Lenin nor Mao waited for a better development of Marxist theory to engage in the revolutionary struggle and it was what they learned in the struggle itself that induced them to enrich the theory. This is why there are no revolutions in general; there are only particular revolutions adapted to the situation of each country. (M. Harnercker)
8. …And then, I return to Che: In every revolution, elements of very different tendencies are always incorporated which, nevertheless, coincide in the action and in its most immediate objectives. About the same time, Salvador Allende said: Being young and not being a revolutionary is even a biological contradiction and Louis Althusser (French philosopher, 1918-1990), said something that I cannot agree with, namely that, in principle, philosophy can become a political intervention or tool; as it evolves in this direction, it can contribute to transforming the world. [Can it really…? Nah! I have explained why in a previous Reader].
Bottom Line
9. With justice in any regime, more often than not, being the mask of the injustice of the powers that be, when true social justice and human rights are systematically denied, the people (claim holders) have no choice but to take justice into their own hands… We call this restorative justice. (Politika) Pick your choice.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com