Research Paper on Human Rights Law (Marxist Theory)
Submitted by:
Igmedio F. Alcera Carrisa Lyka G. Miranda Dianne E. Rosales
Submitted to: Atty. Bernabe Figueroa
June 23, 2014 Chapter I INTRODUCTION Background of the Study Every person from the moment they are born automatically becomes a member of society. They are born free and equal in dignity and rights without any distinction as to race, color, sex, religion, origin and social status. History discloses that human beings, particularly the low class in the society have been subjected to torture, force, violence, threat, intimidation, slavery or other means which oppressed their human dignity and liberty by reasons of discrimination and inequality. Even Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity was himself a victim of human rights violation. Jesus Christ in the biblical accounts, came and lived as a human being, and was unjustly tried sentenced to death and crucified in the most inhuman manner. This was the first account of denial of due process. (Mark 14:53-64; Luke 22:66; H 23:2-7). Hence, the concept of the human rights has existed and it emerged as a response to the felt need to curtail human rights abuses. Public awareness has been elevated so quickly that nowadays, human rights law covers almost all features of human activity. The philosophy of human rights attempts to examine the underlying basis of the concept of human rights and critically looks at its content and justification. Several theoretical approaches have been advanced to explain how and why the concept of human rights developed. One of which is the Marxist theory which is the subject matter of this research paper. The researchers are tasked in this study to correlate the Theory of Marxism to human rights as it is hypothesized in this study that the above-named theory is one of the sources or origin of human rights that we are enjoying nowadays. The succeeding pages of this paper will discuss in detail the connotations of the word human rights and how it is related to Marxism Theory. Further, this will also elaborate the researchers understanding and the relationships that exists, if ever there is, based on the founded theories of some well- known authorities.
Statement of the Problem This study specifically aims to correlate human rights to the Theory of Marxism. Specifically, this seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What is human rights? 2. What is Marxist Theory? 3. Why Marxist Theory is advanced as one of the sources of human rights?
Objective of the Study This study aims to correlate human rights to the Theory of Marxism. Specifically, this aims to attain the following objectives: 1. Determine the meaning of human rights; 2. Know the meaning of Marxist Theory; 3. To determine why Marxist Theory is advanced as one of the sources of human rights;
Significance of the Study This study will be significant to the following: ACADEME. This will significantly contribute to this sector since findings of this study can be used as a ready reference on topics dealing on human rights and its violations. This will also inform the readers on the possible relationships that exists between human rights and Marxism Theory; READERS/RESEARCHERS. Findings of this study will be beneficial to this sector as this can be used as bases of their researches. Besides, other topics on this study can also be the subject of this research works. LAW STUDENTS. Findings of this study can serve as an on hand reference to law students in their law education. COMMUNITY. Proceeds of this study will be beneficial to the community, since the results there under might inform them their basic human rights.
Definition of Terms The following terms are defined both conceptually and operationally to further grasps the meaning of this endeavor. Human rights According to United Nations, human rights are generally defined as those rights, which are inherent in our nature, and without which, we cannot live as human beings. It further defines that human rights are rights to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any or other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible. As cited by Filip Spagnoli, Karl Marx defined human rights are the rights of the egoistic man, separated from his fellow men and from the community. According to Philippine Commission on Human Rights, human rights are supreme, inherent and inalienable rights to life, dignity and self-development. It is the essence of these rights that makes man human. As defined by Merriam-Webster human rights are rights (as freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, and execution) regarded as belonging fundamentally to all persons. Marxism Merriam-Webster defined Marxism as the political, economic, and social theories of Karl Marx including the belief that the struggle between social classes is a major force in history and that there should eventually be a society in which there are no classes. Slavery The status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. Violence Is the employment of serious or irresistible force upon the person.
Intimidation There is intimidation when a person is compelled by a reasonable and well- grounded fear of an imminent and grave evil upon his person or property or upon the person or property of his spouse, descendants or ascendants. Torture Under Article 1 of Convention on Torture, torture is defined as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or of the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
Chapter II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDY Related Literature. Human Rights. As cited by Filip Spagnoli, Karl Marx defined human rights are the rights of the egoistic man, separated from his fellow men and from the community. They are the rights of man as an isolated, inward looking, and self-centered creature Who regards his free opinion as his intellectual private property instead of a part of communication. Who uses his right to private property not in order to create a beach-head for his public and cultural life but to accumulate unnecessary wealth and to protect unequal property relationships Who considers fellow men as the only legitimate restraint on his own freedom, and therefore as a limit instead of the source of his own thinking, identity and humanity (this is the way in which Marx read Art. 6 of the French constitution of 1793: Liberty is the power which man has to do everything which does not harm the rights of others) Who considers freedom to be no more than the ability to pursue selfish interests and to enjoy property, unhindered by the need to help other people, without regard for other men and independently of society And who considers equality to be the equal right to this kind of freedom (everybody can emancipate himself by becoming a bourgeois). Human rights, in this view, serve only to protect egoism and the unequal distribution of property, and to oppress the poor who question this and who try to redistribute property. On top of that, human rights obscure this fact because they are formulated in such a way that it seems that everybody profits from them. Contrary to what is implicit in their name, human rights are not general or universal rights. They are the rights of those who have property and who want to keep it. A specific situation of a specific group of people is generalized in human rights. Of course, this criticism can be correct. No one will deny that human rights can serve to protect and justify egoism, oppression of the poor and indifference. They can help to shield people behind private interest and to transform society into a collection of loose, self-centered, self-sufficient, withdrawn, independent, sovereign and isolated individuals. Because the rich have more means to use, for example, their freedom of expression, this freedom can be an instrument of the rich to monopolize political propaganda and political power and to use this power to maintain their privileged situation. Economic relationships can be maintained by legal means. However, in order to judge and possibly reject a phenomenon, one should also look at its intended and ideal functions, not only at the ways in which it can be abused. Human rights not only protect man against the attacks and claims of other people (for example the attacks and claims on his property); they also create the possibility of forcing people to help each other. They do not allow you to do something to other people (taking their property, determining their opinions etc.), but at the same time they invite you to do something with other people. In other words, they are not only negative. They not only limit the way we relate to other people, they also stimulate and protect the way we relate to other people. 1
According to Coquia, human rights are those rights, which are inherent in our nature, and without which, we cannot live as human beings. This allows to develop and use our human qualities, intelligence, talents and conscience, and to satisfy our spiritual and other needs. 2
1 Flip Spagnoli, http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/mard-and-human-rights/ 2 Jorge R. Coquia; Human Rights: An Introductory Course; Central Professional Books, Inc., 2000 pp 3 Coquia further illustrated that human rights are inherent because they are not granted by any person or authority. 3
Marxist Theory. As discussed by Berlin, The Marxist theory emphasizes the interest of society over and individual mans interest. Individual freedom is recognized only after the interest of society is served. It is concerned with economic and social rights over civil or political rights of the community. In a capitalistic society where few men controlled the means of production, an individuals needs and rights are never satisfied. The economic and social rights in many international instruments of human rights are claimed to be due to the Marxist theory of equitable distribution of wealth and economic resources.
3 Ibid. Marx regarded, the natural law approach as very idealistic. He saw nothing natural or inalienable about human rights. Such concepts of law, justice, morality, democracy, freedoms as historical categories whose content is determined by the natural conditions of the life of the people. The inclusion of economic and social rights among the international instruments are attributed to the theory of communist states. 4
According to Abbdullahi Ahmed An-naim, basic to the Marxian theory of human rights is a principle of equality. Every individual is equally deserving of having his or her basic needs met; thus all are equally entitled to these rights, regardless of sex, race, beliefs, and so on. For Marx, this equality provision means that ideally the society cannot be a class society. Significant socioeconomic inequalities will have to be eliminated so that everyone will have roughly the same opportunity to make use of their formal rights, such as the right to free speech. 5
Bryan Nelson further discussed, that Marxism theory itself is an ideology employed as a justification for party denomination and as a cloak for nationalist ideals, it
4 Berlin , Two Concepts of Liberty [1958] 5 Abbdullahi Ahmed An-naim; Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspectives a quest for consensus; University of Pennyslvania Press, 1992 pp 181 became an ideology in the fullest sense. According to Karl Marx, the capitalist simply compels the workers to work longer than the time it requires to create sufficient value to pay them. Capitalists compels them, to labor 16 hours rather than 8 to 10 hours it requires to generate enough economic value to maintain them. Workers have no choice but to expropriation of their labor. Marx has described a seemingly perfect and unalterable system of exploitation. Marx insists that the exploitation, hence misery, of the proletarian is much more extreme than that injured by earlier productive classes. Workers are transformed into little more than commodities, something to be purchased on the market at the lowest price possible. There only value is the market value of labor power, not their value as human beings. Under these conditions, not only is the economic condition of the proletarian debased beyond human toleration, but the nexus between the worker and the capitalist ceases even to be a human relationship. Thus, unlike any previous productive class, the proletariat is not only made miserable in the narrow economic sense, it is quite literally dehumanized. Marx employed the term alienation to describe this dehumanization, and he devoted much theoretical effort in his younger years to analyzing the nature of alienation in a capitalist system. His chief work on this subject is The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. 6
Tillman Clark also stated that as the Russian Revolution was arguably the high water mark for historical Marxism, it is arguably the most important reference to theories of human rights and the policies and practices that the architects of this event adhered to and implemented. When looking at the Russian Revolution, it could be counter- argued that the capitalist countries were the aggressors that forced Russia into authoritarianism. Additionally, it could be argued that all states--especially revolutionary ones--were founded on violence and suppression of dissent, notwithstanding the bloody birth of liberalism which, as some authors have pointed out, were not inherently democratic but were made so only after a protracted struggle. 12 But if a closer look is taken, the theories of Marxism, especially after the Russian revolution, are imbued with
6 Bryan Nelson; Western Political Thought: From Socrates To The Age of Ideology 2/E; Pearson Education, 1996 pp 336 not only a willingness to use violence and repression, but a willingness to do so brutally and with little to no moral restrictions. 7
M. Anne Brown stated, Marxism enabled quite a different appreciation of the international dimension of rights from that offered by liberal and interdependency theories. Various Marxist approaches have offered a critique of the dynamic structures of enrichment and impoverishment, and so have given substance to the idea of patterns of abuse and the assertion of rights beyond the boundaries of citizenship. Moreover, drawing on Marxisms emphasis on the primacy of human production in the continuing transformation of the social and material world, later interpretations of Marxism (neo- Marxism, critical theory) have questioned the production of fundamental categories of liberal notions of rights and of specific patterns of abuse. 8
7 Tillman Clark; http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/218/3/human-rights-and-radical-social-change-liberalism- marxism-and-progressive-populism-in-venezuela 8 M. Anne Brown; Human Rights and the Borders of Suffering: The Promotion of Human Rights in International Politics,; Manchester University Press, 2002 pp 50
Chapter III DISCUSSION Human Rights Human rights are moral principles that set out certain standards of human behavior, and are regularly protected as legal rights in national and international law. They are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal (applicable everywhere) and egalitarian (the same for everyone). The doctrine of human rights has been highly influential within international law, global and regional institutions. Policies of states and in the activities of non- governmental organizations and have become a cornerstone of public policy around the world. The idea of human rights suggests, "if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights." The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature and justifications of human rights to this day. Indeed, the question of what is meant by a "right" is itself controversial and the subject of continued philosophical debate. Many of the basic ideas that animated the movement developed in the aftermath of the Second World War and the atrocities of The, culminating in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The ancient world did not possess the concept of universal human rights. [5] The true forerunner of human rights discourse was the concept of natural rights which appeared as part of the medieval Natural law tradition that became prominent during the Enlightenment with such philosophers as John, Francis Hutcheson, and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, and featured prominently in the English Bill of Rights and the political discourse of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. From this foundation, the modern human rights arguments emerged over the latter half of the twentieth century.
Marxist Theory The Marxism Theory believes that human rights exist insofar as the government creates them and allows them to exist. The idea of rights is, therefore, entirely subject to the supreme authority of the state. Marxism is a worldview and method of societal analysis that focuses on class relations and societal conflict that uses a materialist and a dialectical view of social transformation. Marxist methodology uses economic and sociopolitical inquiry and applies that to the analysis and critique of the development of capitalism and the role of struggle in systemic economic change. The main of objective of Marxism theory is not to promote human rights or to support the separation of governmental powers, nor even equality before the law, but to criticize these very ideals of the rule of law and to reveal its putative structures of socio- economic domination. With these ideas in mind Karl Marx argued that basic human rights are not fixed but rather or constantly evolving according to the progressive stages of class warfare. In the mid-to-late 19th century, the intellectual tenets of Marxism were inspired by two German philosophers: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist analyses and methodologies have influenced multiple political ideologies and Karl Marx and Friedich Engles social movements. Marxism encompasses an economic theory, a sociological theory, a philosophical method, and a revolutionary view of social change. There is no single definitive Marxist theory; Marxist analysis has been applied to diverse subjects and has been misconceived and modified during the course of its development, resulting in numerous and sometimes contradictory theories that fall under the rubric of Marxism or Marxian analysis. Marxism builds on a materialist understanding of societal development, taking as its starting point the necessary economic activities required by human society to provide for its material needs. The form of economic organization or mode is understood to be the basis from which the majority of other social phenomena including social relations, political and legal systems, morality and ideology arise (or at the least by which they are directly influenced). These social relations form the superstructure, for which the economic system forms the base. As the forces of production (most notably technology) improve, existing forms of social organization become inefficient and stifle further progress. These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in the form of class. According to Marxist analysis, class conflict within capitalism arises due to intensifying contradictions between highly productive mechanized and socialized production performed by the proletariat, and private ownership and private appropriation of the surplus product in the form of surplus value (profit) by a small minority of private owners called the bourgeoisie. As the contradiction becomes apparent to the proletariat, social unrest between the two antagonistic classes intensifies, culminating in asocial revolution. The eventual long-term outcome of this revolution would be the establishment of socialism a socioeconomic system based on cooperative ownership of the means of production, distribution, and production organized directly for use. Karl Marx hypothesized that, as the productive forces and technology continued to advance, socialism would eventually give way to a communist stage of social development. Communism would be a classless, stateless, humane society erected on common and the principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Marxism has developed into different branches and schools of thought. Different schools place a greater emphasis on certain aspects of classical Marxism while de- emphasizing or rejecting other aspects of Marxism, sometimes combining Marxist analysis with non-Marxian concepts. Some variants of Marxism primarily focus on one aspect of Marxism as the determining force in social development such as the mode of production, class, power-relationships or property ownership while arguing other aspects are less important or current research makes them irrelevant. Despite sharing similar premises, different schools of Marxism might reach contradictory conclusions from each other. [4] For instance, different Marxian economists have contradictory explanations of economic crisis and different predictions for the outcome of such crises. Furthermore, different variants of Marxism apply Marxist analysis to study different aspects of society (e.g. mass culture, economic crises, or feminism). These theoretical differences have led various socialist and communist parties and political movements to embrace different political strategies for attaining socialism and advocate different programs and policies from each other. One example of this is the division between revolutionary socialists and reformists that emerged in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) during the early 20th century. Marxist understandings of history and of society have been adopted by academics in the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology, media studies, political science, theater, history, sociology, art history and art theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.
Why Marxist Theory is advanced as one of the sources of human rights? Marxist theory is one of the most important theories of the existence human rights. The economic and social rights in many international instruments of human rights are claimed to be due to the Marxist theory of equitable distribution of wealth and economic resources. Marx regarded, the natural law approach as very idealistic. He saw nothing natural or inalienable about human rights. Such concepts of law, justice, morality, democracy, freedoms as historical categories whose content is determined by the natural conditions of the life of the people. The inclusion of economic and social rights among the international instruments are attributed to the theory of communist states. 9
Marxs theory of human rights thus coincided with a theory of economic development and the idea that socialism would bring about not only political emancipation of the working class but also the unfettered growth of economic abundance through a new organization of the relations of production. As the Russian Revolution was arguably the high water mark for historical Marxism, it is arguably the most important reference to theories of human rights and the policies and practices that the architects of this event adhered to and implemented. When looking at the Russian Revolution, it could be counter-argued that the capitalist countries were the aggressors that forced Russia into authoritarianism. Additionally, it could be argued that all states-- especially revolutionary ones--were founded on violence and suppression of dissent, notwithstanding the bloody birth of liberalism which, as some authors have pointed out,
9 Berlin , Two Concepts of Liberty [1958] were not inherently democratic but were made so only after a protracted struggle. But if a closer look is taken, the theories of Marxism, especially after the Russian revolution, are imbued with not only a willingness to use violence and repression, but a willingness to do so brutally and with little to no moral restrictions. Marxism is rather straightforward in its approach to revolution. Lenin was arguably the first to truly grasp and implement the implications of revolutionary Marxism and the active engagement in terror and suppression of the previous holders power-- such as landowners, capitalists and those who had an active interest in taking up armed struggle against the revolution. Writing his classic The State and Revolution, on the eve of the revolution in 1917, Lenin but it quite bluntly when he wrote that, "The dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists. We must suppress them in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be crushed by force. While this statement is contextualized with a discussion of increased democracy of the underprivileged and the full realization that it is transitory policy that acknowledges the lack of freedom inherent in it, the implications are obvious and straightforward. His revolutionary counterpart, Leon Trotsky, in a polemic against Karl Kautsky written in 1920 entitled Terrorism and Communism, put it in even more direct terms: Who aims at the end cannot reject the means. The struggle must be carried on with such intensity as actually to guarantee the supremacy of the proletariat. If the Socialist revolution requires a dictatorship the sole form in which the proletariat can achieve control of the State [A quote from Kautsky] it follows that the dictatorship must be guaranteed at all cost. 14
What Lenin and Trotskys quotes point to is an honest admittance of the need to use force at any cost to guarantee the ushering in of the a socialist revolution. It this theory, inscribed into the practical application of Marxist revolution, through which the rejection of human rights and the following authoritarianism and repression is used. The way in which Marxism treats human rights follows a very distinct ideology of radical social change. The first idea is that liberal human rights are premised on inequality and injustice and should be seen as simply a theory natural to capitalism and therefore open to complete rejection. The second idea is that if a movement has an emancipatory plan and ideology that conforms to the rejection of capitalism and the desired institution of socialism, then terror and abuses to human dignity can be accepted for a certain transitional period in order to suppress those who are opposed to seeing this plan come to fruition. The rejection of human rights is to be tolerated under the guise of necessity and a rejection of bourgeois morality. 10
Marxisms rejection of human rights has amounted, when in power, to the equivalent of ignoring true political social redresses, suppressing civil and political freedoms while giving a free hand to forces of authoritarianism and indiscriminate terror. 15 It cannot be said that this was the intention, nor can it be said that this was the logical, determined, path of Marxist theory, but there is simply no way to get around the
10 http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/218/3/human-rights-and-radical-social-change-liberalism-marxism-and- progressive-populism-in-venezuela fact that Marxist regimes and movements that have rejected human rights have also been historic failures at using transitory force to bring in radical social change--and that the Marxist theory of human rights played a large role in this disaster.
Chapter IV CONCLUSION The researchers concluded based, as Marx believed that laws are the product of class oppression, and that laws would have to disappear with the advent of communism. Marxist ideas are closely associated with despotic communist regimes, since these regimes have claimed Marxism as their official ideology. Unfortunately, the Marxist dream of a lawless society has led only to gross inequality and class-oriented genocidal policies. In fact, Marxist regimes have been far more efficient in the art of killing millions of individuals than in the art of producing any concrete or perceived form of social justice. But it appears that Marxism is still very much alive, and that it has deeply influenced a direct line of contemporary legal thinkers, who have adopted some of its ideas or picked up some aspects of this radical theory. Indeed, Marxist theory overlaps with much of the current work within critical theories of law. This may be regarded as a dangerous development, since history empirically demonstratesrather conclusively that whenever Marxist legal theory is applied, at least two of its most dreadful characteristics invariably appear, namely, judicial partiality and political arbitrariness.