Socialists have been skeptical about the human rights theories put forward by liberals. Socialists believe that the precedence of political rights over socio-economic and cultural rights is to benefit capitalists. Marx regarded the doctrine of ‘the Rights of Man’ as a means to advance the interests of private property. He believed that such rights were a ‘right to inequality’ as they applied an equal standard to unequal individuals. The right to property had very different implications for the rich and poor.
Liberals such as Locke put forward the trusteeship theory that the state is a trust for the protection of natural rights of “life, liberty and property.” The inclusion of property as natural right has caused antagonism of the idea among socialists. Libertarian Robert Nozick considered that individuals hire state (which he treated as a private firm) primarily to protect their property holding. He held that state had no authority to engage in redistributive transfers. To socialists, liberty was not freedom to own property, but freedom from necessities. Socialism gave the slogan “from each as per his capacity and to each as per his necessity.”
Socialists are against viewing individual as the end in themselves and state as well as society as the means. Marx and Lenin held that the rights maintained in any society are the rights of the ruling class or dominant class as the expense of the dependant class. Socialism emerges out the centrality accorded to society. Socialism considers that the individual’s interests and societies goals are not against one another. They believe that man is social by nature and hence there is no conflict between man and society. Due to these assumptions, they do not have a strong tradition of rights against society. To them, society is prior to man. On the other hand, liberals percived rights as a instrument to safeguard the individual from the subjugation by society and state.
The erstwhile Soviet Union is considered as the example of socialist state. Lenin believed that though perfect communistic state was yet to materialize the inequalities had decreased since state had seized control over the means of production. National industries and abolishment of private property were conceived as the panacea to problems plaguing modern society. Though the Soviet state provided for elaborate economic, social, political, cultural, rights they were regulated and to be exercised in accordance with the aims of building communism. In practice, no liberal-democratic rights were allowed and all dissent was purged. Western nations branded Soviet Union as a country behind the ‘Iron Curtain’. They brought numerous cases of human right violations against Soviet Union.
Despite fairing poorly in liberal-demartic rights the socialist nations fared better than most developed nations on affordable education, health care housing and substantive rights. Their effort in achieving socio-economic rights is laudable. For instance, Soviet Union had 120 beds in hospitals for every 10,000 people in comparison to so in USA.Moreover, the Cuban feats in healthcare and its achievements in economic redistribution have been remarkable.
The impressive bill of rights provided in the constitution of former USSR (1977) remains one of the most holistic and elaborate set of rights any nation could aspire to provide for its citizens.
The socialists view that the human rights project by the Western nations as a subtle defense and prorogation of capitalistic ideas. They percieve it similar to the ‘end of history’ theory which aimed to give democracy a hegemonic status. To them Human rights framework is used as a tool to advance individual prosperity at the cost of society.
Socialists view the framework of Responsibility to protect as nebulous and serving their ulterior motives such as regime change. Moreover, the priority accorded to individual over society left the socialists unsatisfied. The emergence of positive liberty and welfare state modal has advanced the cause of democratic development where civil-political rights needn’t be satisfied for the realization of socio-economic rights.
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