Human Rights and the Age of Inequality
Samuel Moyn
In “Human Rights and the Age of Inequality,” Samuel Moyn deals with the drastic mismatch between the egalitarian crisis and the human rights remedy that demands not a substitute but a supplement. He points out that the human rights regime and movement are simply not equipped to challenge global inequalities.
Samuel Moyn argues that the current approach to human rights isn’t enough to address the growing inequality in our world. While human rights focus on basic protections, they don’t tackle the massive gap between the rich and the poor.
The Story of Croesus
Imagine a man who owns everything, called Croesus, after the legendary king known for his immense wealth. This modern Croesus is incredibly rich but also generous. He ensures everyone has basic needs like food, water, healthcare, and even vacations. Compared to the world we live in, where many lack these necessities, Croesus’s world seems like a utopia.
This vision aligns with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which aims to ensure everyone has basic rights simply because they are human. Over the last 50 years, the human rights movement has expanded to include economic and social rights, striving to create a world like Croesus’s.
But here’s the catch: Croesus’s world still has extreme inequality. His generosity doesn’t change the fact that he holds all the power and wealth while everyone else remains dependent on him. The Universal Declaration, though revolutionary in promoting equality in dignity, doesn’t challenge such inequality.
Human Rights and National Welfare
After World War II, countries adopted welfare systems to address poverty and inequality. Even capitalist nations like the United States and Europe embraced policies to reduce inequality, aiming not just for a minimum standard of living but also to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
Franklin Roosevelt’s famous call for a "Second Bill of Rights" in 1944 reflected this ideal, emphasizing economic protections and the end of "special privileges for the few." However, these efforts were mainly national, not global. Countries focused on building welfare systems within their borders rather than addressing global inequality.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while an international document, mainly served as a guide for individual nations to create their own protections. As a result, welfare and human rights became separate paths: welfare worked to reduce inequality within nations, while human rights focused on ensuring basic protections without addressing economic gaps.
The Global Challenge
Today, global inequality remains a pressing issue, especially between rich and poor countries. The human rights movement has succeeded in combating repression and violence but hasn’t effectively addressed economic disparities. Its tools, like advocacy and legal action, aren’t designed to reduce inequality.
Historically, significant progress in reducing inequality required major pressures, such as fear of social unrest or external threats. For example, during the Cold War, both capitalist and communist nations worked to reduce inequality to avoid internal rebellion and maintain stability.
Human rights movements lack this kind of pressure. They aim to shame governments into action but don’t provoke the fear or urgency needed to drive economic redistribution.
The Future of Human Rights
To tackle inequality, the human rights movement would need to change drastically, potentially losing its focus on basic protections. Alternatively, it might need to step aside and let another movement emerge to address inequality.
For now, our world increasingly resembles Croesus’s, where basic rights might improve but extreme inequality remains.
Key Theme: The Limits of Human Rights in Addressing Inequality
Moyn argues that human rights, as they are currently understood, focus on protecting people from extreme suffering but don’t challenge the huge gap between the rich and the poor. Even if human rights are fully realized, they wouldn’t prevent a world where one person has everything while others have just enough to survive.
Why is this important?
In today’s world, inequality is growing. While human rights protect basic freedoms and needs, they don’t demand fairness in how wealth and power are shared. Moyn suggests that we need more than just human rights to create a truly just society.
Historical Context: Human Rights and National Welfare
After World War II, many countries built welfare systems to provide for their citizens. These systems included not just basic protections but also efforts to reduce the gap between rich and poor. For example:
- In Europe, nations adopted policies like free education, healthcare, and progressive taxation to create more equality.
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights supported socio-economic rights but mainly as guidelines for nations to follow.
However, these efforts were mostly limited to individual countries, especially in the wealthy West. Poorer nations, particularly in the Global South, struggled to create similar systems, and global inequality persisted.
Analysis: Why Human Rights Aren’t Enough
- Focus on Individual Rights:
Human rights emphasize protecting individuals from harm, such as political oppression or poverty. While this is important, it doesn’t tackle the root causes of inequality, like unfair economic systems.
- Lack of Redistribution:
Reducing inequality requires redistributing wealth and power from the rich to the poor. Historically, this happened when societies faced major threats, like wars or revolutions. Human rights movements, which aim to protect rather than redistribute, are not designed for this kind of change.
- Global Challenges:
In a globalized world, inequality isn’t just about differences within countries but also between rich and poor nations. Human rights don’t address how wealth and resources are distributed globally.
Conclusion: Rethinking Human Rights for a Fairer World
Moyn suggests that human rights alone can’t solve the problem of inequality. To create a fairer world, we need new ideas and movements focused on reducing the wealth gap. This might mean:
- Expanding the concept of human rights to include limits on inequality.
- Building global systems to ensure fairer distribution of resources.
For now, human rights remain crucial in fighting oppression and ensuring basic protections. But to truly address inequality, we must go beyond Croesus’s world—a place where a few have it all while many just get by.
Takeaway for Students
Samuel Moyn’s work challenges us to think critically about human rights. While they are essential for protecting basic freedoms and needs, they don’t address the deeper issue of inequality. To build a better world, we must find ways to ensure not just a “floor” of protection for everyone but also fairness in how wealth and power are shared.
EXTENSIVE READING
Samuel Moyn, in his essay “Human Rights and the Age of Inequality”, highlights a major problem: the global issue of inequality cannot be fixed by human rights alone. Instead of replacing the fight for equality, human rights need to work alongside it. He argues that the current human rights movement is not strong enough to address the deep inequalities in the world.
A Parable About Croesus
Imagine a man who owns everything – let’s call him Croesus, named after the ancient king known for his wealth. This modern Croesus is unbelievably rich but also generous. He ensures that everyone has basic needs like food, water, healthcare, and even vacations.
Compared to today’s world, Croesus’s generosity might seem utopian. His vision aligns with the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which promises basic rights for everyone. Over the past half-century, the human rights movement has worked to promote these rights, including social and economic ones.
But there’s a catch. While Croesus provides a safety net, his world is still one of extreme inequality. The idea of equality—especially limiting the wealth gap—is absent from human rights frameworks. Human rights focus on ensuring a minimum standard of living but don’t challenge the vast divide between the rich and the poor. This means that a world like Croesus’s, where one person owns almost everything while others have just enough to survive, could still meet human rights standards.
This thought experiment shows the limits of human rights: even if fully implemented, they are compatible with extreme inequality. The question is whether we should accept this reality or aim for something more just.
Human Rights and National Welfare
The history of human rights is tied to the history of national welfare systems. After World War II, many countries embraced welfarism, focusing on reducing inequality through state-led programs. Human rights played a small role in this larger movement, which aimed to provide both a basic safety net (a “floor” of protection) and to limit inequality (a “ceiling” on wealth gaps).
For example, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Second Bill of Rights” called for socio-economic protections like freedom from want and an end to special privileges for the wealthy. However, this vision was largely limited to national efforts rather than global ones. Nations in the mid-20th century prioritized managing their own economies and addressing inequality within their borders.
The post-war welfare state succeeded in some places, especially in Europe, but its success was geographically limited. As human rights became more globally recognized, they focused on ensuring basic protections rather than addressing inequality. Globalization of these norms has prioritized minimum standards of living over the fight for equality.
Can Human Rights Tackle Inequality?
Human rights movements have achieved significant progress in areas like reducing political repression and violence. However, they have not been effective in addressing socio-economic inequality. This is partly because human rights focus on individual rights and often resist the kind of state intervention needed to reduce inequality.
Redistributing wealth requires pressure on the rich to share their resources with the poor. Historically, such redistribution happened only in times of fear—when societies faced threats like workers’ uprisings or the Cold War. These pressures led to reforms that balanced protection with efforts to reduce inequality.
Today, the human rights movement lacks the tools and urgency to create similar change. Naming and shaming governments or advocating for legal reforms are not enough to challenge market-driven inequality. A movement that could truly tackle inequality would need to be radically different from the current human rights framework.
The Future of Human Rights and Inequality
To address inequality, human rights movements face a choice: either transform themselves into something new or wait for other forces to rise and fight inequality. While human rights have made valuable contributions, such as combating repression and violence, they have not figured out how to stigmatize inequality effectively.
A global movement for economic justice would need to invent new strategies and political approaches. However, it might lose the ability to address other important human rights issues. For now, inequality continues to grow, and Croesus’s world—where extreme wealth and poverty coexist—is the reality we face.
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