They (see G Kohler's comments below) would be my sympathies too.
To extend the bourgeois democratic pressure for human rights, which can take a purely individualised legal form, to the actual concrete struggle for rights, in the actual context of people's lives.
You note some points already on the record (below). It might be necessary to unpack these and consider separately how far each of them can be pushed. I note for example you say the right to full employment is contained in the 1948 UN Declaration.
This sounds similar to the "right to work" which left wingers campaigned for in the 30's. One of the most controversial rights under capitalism.
In the globalised world it might need adapating to the right to work in reasonable jobs at reasonable rates of pay.
I do think that the overall theme for global campaigns has to be one of "common humanity" and some would see this as diluting a specifically class-based appeal to the working class.
But I think openings need to be taken to make such campaigns particularly relevant for working class and working people, as well as the perhaps billion people who are in marginalised jobs in terms of the global capitalist economy, and are semi-lumpen. Or "under-employed" to use more neutral economic terminology.
Chris Burford
----- Original Message ----- From: "g kohler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2004 4:00 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] economics and class struggle behind legal victory.
From: Chris Burford Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 . . . snip> As for working people - working class and self-employed workers on the land - a more radical agenda of human rights is to their advantage, but there is a downside in that it ultimately tends to emphasise atomised individualised rights, . . .
Reply: Wouldn't it make sense to campaign for *economic* human rights in order to gain ground in the legal sphere? Many of the economic human rights have already been catalogued in the 1948 UN Declaration, including the right to a decent standard of living, full employment, no child labour, no discrimination against women, and the right to a social order that facilitates those other rights. One could add the right of not being exploited. Since economic human rights can only be realized in a collective manner, the argument of "atomized, individualized" does not apply to economic human rights. Workers and poor people of the world unite for what? Could be: unite for your economic human rights. That sits also well with the theme of a common humanity, as raised by Lebowitz in a recent posting. GK
