Human rights: Food for an old yet current thought ‘HR and neoliberalism’
HRR 805[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are it behooves you. It has been a long while since, in the Readers, I have gone back to basics on the political economy of human rights. Excerpting from this article by Nande I was spared to do it from scratch myself. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
1. Since the beginning of the history of mankind, certain rights have been inherent to wo/man regardless of race, nationality or gender. Although, there have been incremental changes to the concept of human rights (HR) as the world evolves, its core conceptualization has remained the same. In the past, only rights of privileged people were protected but, …over time, the scope has been expanded to incorporate other hitherto marginalized groups.
2. In 1948, the newly formed United Nations Organization’s General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a document that represented the necessity of HR for all peoples. Consequently, international law, national constitutions, and other conventions have supported and expanded on the UDHR to promote and protect the rights of peoples.
3. The ‘natural rights’ theory is very helpful in our understanding of the origin of the concept of the current-day HR. Natural rights are a very old philosophical concept. Related to natural law, natural rights refer to rights that are universal and inalienable. They are not related to any government or culture. By being human, a person is entitled to their natural rights –that is where the concept of universal HR is gotten from.
4. According to the UDHR and other documents, there are five categories of human rights: economic, social, cultural, civil, and political. Economic, social, and cultural rights include the right to work, the right to food and water, the right to housing, and the right to education. As with all types of HR, it is the state’s responsibility to protect, promote, and implement economic, social, and cultural rights. Specific examples in this category include:
• The right to work in a safe environment for a fair wage
• The right to access health care, including mental health care
• The right to adequate food, clothing, and housing
• The right to affordable sanitation and clean water
• The right to take part in cultural life
• The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress
• The right to social security.
5. Civil and political rights, on the other hand, include articles from the first part of the UDHR. They state that people must be allowed to participate freely in civil and political life without facing repression or discrimination. While economic, social and cultural rights are framed as rights a person is entitled-to, most civil and political rights are about protection from certain things, like torture and slavery.
Specific examples in this category include:
• The right to life, which is violated by actions like death by torture, neglect and use of force
• The right to freedom of expression, which is violated by restricting access to ideas and limiting press freedom
• The right to privacy, which is violated by intruding on a person’s sexual life or personal data
• The right to asylum, which is violated by deporting someone to a country where their lives are at risk
• The right to a fair trial and due process, which is violated by a court that is not impartial and grants excessive delays
• The right to freedom of religion, which is violated when someone is punished for following their beliefs or forced to adopt another religion
• The right to freedom from discrimination, which is violated when traits like race, gender, religion… are used as justification for actions like being fired from a job.
6. There are a number of reasons why it became necessary to codify HR and make them a priority –i.e., the exclusion of certain groups from political participation, the enslavement of certain people by privileged people, repressive governments, and so on. Impliedly, codifying HR was a means to improving the standard of human life. However, neoliberalism has completely changed the configuration of HR by electing to focus more on ‘mundane rights’ and emphasize their application.
7. It is safe to say that it is economic rights that determine the civil, political, social and cultural rights. Unfortunately, neoliberals exalt the latter over the former. Yet common sense tells us that for anyone to truly enjoy civil, political, social and cultural rights, the individual must have been actively enjoying her/his economic rights.*
*: Consider: The basic material need of man is food –and it is the quest to produce what to eat that ultimately pushes wo/man to discover her/himself. Hence, wo/man is first an economic entity before anything else.
- 8. Following from the above, the people’s rights ought to begin with:
- the right to adequate food, clothing, and housing;
- the right to work in a safe environment for a fair wage;
- the right to access to health care, including mental health care;
- the right to accessible education;
- the right to affordable sanitation and clean water; and other…
By so doing, the economic wo/man would be better positioned physically, mentally and otherwise to demand for other such rights as they are entitled-to. This is because, economically underprivileged people have, time and again, proven that they cannot enjoy the rights provided in the constitutions of their states, because they are too poor to demand them.
9. Neoliberalism is a contemporary concept used to refer to market–oriented reform policies such as:
- eliminating price controls,
- deregulating capital markets,
- lowering trade barriers, and
- reducing the state’s influence in the economy (especially through privatization and austerity measures), among other.
Neoliberalism is also commonly associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Both noted further that neoliberalism has a number of distinct usages in different spheres:
• As a development model, it favors the Washington Consensus.
• As an ideology, it denotes a conception of freedom as an overarching social value associated with reducing state functions to those of a minimal state.
• As a public policy, it involves the privatization of public economic sectors or services, the deregulation of private corporations, sharp decreases in government debt and reduction of spending on public works and services.
10. Neoliberalism is thus considered as both an ideology and as a public policy that, in a nutshell, is seen as a ‘social–value–that–reduces–state–intervention’ through the privatization of public economic sectors and services, the deregulation of private corporations and the reduction of government spending on public works and services. As a corollary, through neoliberalism, those groups left behind and marginalized are purportedly ‘protected’ through HR provisions that, we know, are more of a sham.
11. For instance, it is the responsibility of the state to create the enabling environment for citizens to, among other things, enjoy the right to life, the right to property and the pursuitof happiness. Sadly, the state has been stripped of its HR mandate and has been reduced only to a mere ‘adjuster and balancer’ of the market forces. This, since neoliberalism views the market as the greatest information processor superior to any human being. Neoliberalism is hence considered as the arbiter of truth. This position does not take into account the profit-driven nature of the market that completely ignores HR and the welfare and well-being of citizens. It only focuses on the great financial and technological advancements achieved under neoliberalism in the last few decades –and continuing.
12. Yet, by privatizing public economic sectors and services and reducing spending on public works, the citizens’ economic rights are clearly undermined. The private individuals in these sectors have only focused on recouping their investments and maximizing profit. Even when private companies talk about corporate social responsibility, it is usually a mere face-saving activity as what is given back to the community is usually very minute compared to the profit being extracted. Through the automation of production, many establishments today do not need much manpower to drive their production. Only a few staff are hired, leaving a majority of qualified (but surplus) labour unemployed. This can be considered the greatest threat to HR.
13. Jason Hickel, in his book’ The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions’, rejected the notion that neoliberalism necessitates the retreat of the state in favor of totally free markets, arguing that the spread of neoliberalism required substantial state intervention to establish a global ‘free market’. Here is the real paradox, for governments to withdraw in order to establish a free market economy, they have to be instrumental in doing so. No wonder, privatization, deregulation and the likes are all government policies implemented to compel the government to steer clear of the market.
14. This new configuration of society has made the picture of HR very complicated, especially in countries rendered poor. Through liberal democracy, neoliberalism has been promoted as the only way for countries to achieve economic freedom and competitiveness —democracy thus becomes undemocratic and HR fall through the cracks. Many poor nations are wallowing under the yoke of this type of liberal democracy with all the social problems this system creates. Governments under this system have been helpless in arresting social problems that plague them plunging some of them into total anarchy. This is so, because the very security concerns of contemporary global politics are a consequence of growing unemployment/underemployment. People with the capacity and willingness to work simply cannot find work and their governments are also confined to being mere adjusters and balancers of the overpowering market forces. Even the few staff who find work, the system has put in place various labor control laws that forbids workers to unioniz thereby stripping them of their right to collectively bargain for better working conditions.
15. As a distraction or diversionary measure, neoliberalists militantly promote rights such as rights to sexual orientation, freedom of expression and the likes. These rights have no real bearing on the overall wellbeing or welfare of majorities, but yet preoccupy the minds of so many people.
16. Through the instrumentalization of the media, citizens have come to demonize regimes for failing without understanding the upstream structural causes of the pattern of failures that characterize their political system. When the security situation deteriorates, neoliberalists point fingers at state failure. Sadly, they never mention the fact that state failure encapsulates everything, e.g., from government’s failure to safeguard life and property to the provision of basic livelihoods for citizens to eke out a living.
17. In most developed countries, there are strong social security systems in place that ensure that the unemployed do not become a social problem. Even the unrepentant capitalist USA, that is at the helm of global Capitalism, promotes welfare programs to keep her citizens (minimally) happy. I note that they do this by exploiting resources from other nations. This is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Yet, it is a system that is working wonders for them. Their citizens are kept away from claiming their inalienable HR and spend time to demand other rights, e.g., gay rights. These rights have become the hallmark of many a contemporary society. Other HR have been reduced to just such a narrow window. As a consequence, these societies have woefully failed to live up to the basic expectation citizens have of their governments, namely the protection of all HR since HR are, by definition indivisible including the the rights of nature and the right to development.
18. Unfortunately, leaders of poor countries, whose resources are being exploited to service the social system of developed economies, do not have any countries below them to exploit. They remain helplessly dependent on their overlords who use institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and other international security networks to frustrate their efforts and keep them in check. Any visionary leader from these countries who attempts to go against the dictates of these international overlords is either termed a dictator or a communist. Consequently, the electoral processes of countries rendered poor are exploited to foist on them, worthless leaders who will only dance to the tune of the metropoles.
19. As anarchy looms in so many countries in the South today, no developed state or international organization has taken up the task of holding governments to account for their failure to promote and protect the inalienable economic rights of their citizens. When it comes to showing leadership, international actors are always quick to point to the sovereignty of states. But when such states refuse to implement or recognize gay rights, the bullies suddenly find their voice. This double standard has continued to perpetuate poor countries staying at the fringes of HR.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com