Human Rights Theory

Human Rights According to Marxism

Guild Practitioner, Vol. 65, No. 249

12 Pages Posted: 16 Sep 2008 Last revised: 17 Dec 2009

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Eric Engle
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Human Rights According to Marxism

Guild Practitioner, Vol. 65, No. 249

Number of pages: 12 Posted: 16 Sep 2008 Last Revised: 17 Dec 2009
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Human Rights According to Marxism

Guild Practitioner, Vol. 65, pp. 249-254, 2008

Number of pages: 8 Posted: 19 Oct 2007 Last Revised: 29 Mar 2010
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Date Written: September 16, 2008

Abstract

Marxism sees liberal individualist freedoms as a step up from feudalism but not as the end of
historical development. Marxism defends not just negative "freedoms from" (procedural justice)
but also affirmative "rights to" (claims). However, rights are contextualized in Marxism by the
logic of socialist development rather than capitalism. Thus, rights are collective, social, relative
and substantive rather than individual, absolute and procedural. The Marxist critique of
fundamental rights and freedoms is a dialectic between first and second generation rights. This
article presents a detailed explanation of the Marxist conception of human rights and critique of
capitalist individual freedoms. Rights and freedoms are best seen not as conflicting but as
complementing each other.