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ABSTRACT
Based on the principle that universals are valid if they are concrete universals, this article provides a comparison between Western liberal and Chinese Marxist approaches to human rights. It does so in three steps. First is the analysis of the foundations, or roots, of the Western liberal emphasis on an individual’s mastery over a “right” understood in terms of private property, and the Marxist tradition’s emphasis on anti-hegemonic sovereignty in light of anti-colonial struggles for national liberation. Second is the contrast between the development of the Western approach to the core human rights in terms of freedom of expression, movement, and assembly, and the Marxist emphasis on the right to socioeconomic well-being, or common prosperity. Third is the comparison between the fruits of either tradition, one in terms of identity politics, and the other in the emphasis on civil, political, cultural, and environmental rights. The article concludes by asking whether the two approaches are able to come to an understanding of each other, and proposes that such an understanding may need to take place in light of the concept and reality of concrete universals.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The Latin term is dominium ex jure Quiritium—the right of absolute ownership for any individual Roman citizen. For a useful treatment, see Diósdi (Citation1970, 56–59).
2 The material that follows draws on detailed earlier research concerning the Roman invention of private property (Boer and Petterson Citation2017, 114–118).
3 As Aristotle (Citation2005, 1253b34–1254a1) had observed somewhat earlier, “If every tool could perform its own work when ordered, or by seeing what to do in advance.”
4 A note on citations: even though I have worked with the original languages of material mentioned in this study, for ease of reference I cite where possible the English translations of these works.
5 This idea of sovereignty is usually described as “Westphalian,” referring to the Peace of Westphalia (1648) after the brutal Thirty Years War (1618–1648). Needless to say, there is an enormous literature on this topic, albeit with a distinctly Eurocentric focus. I can cite here only a couple of representative works (Jackson Citation2007; Grimm Citation2015).
6 For more detail on the following, see Boer (Citation2016).
7 As Stefano Azzarà (Citation2020) points out, the developments in the first year of the pandemic brought to the surface the inherent authoritarianism of liberalism.
8 Notably, in Paine's thought the right to property recedes behind the scenes, although it underlies his whole framework.
9 The right to life—still espoused by Paine—dropped out at some point, as “the economy” was seen to conflict with such a right. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how much the right to life has disappeared from the Western tradition.
10 Apart from full range of online English resources at the website of the China Society for Human Rights Studies (chinahumanrights.org), a number of other works in English are also recommended (Sun Citation2014; Chang et al. Citation2020; Zwart Citation2011, Citation2014, Citation2017, Citation2018, Citation2020).
11 The sentence appears on two occasions in Sima Qian’s Shiji (The Records of the Grand Historian), once in the “Guanyan liezhuan” section, and once in the “Huozhi liezhuan” section.
12 Although I cite the English translation here, the actual translation is my own.
13 The shift from social construction (a distinct contribution of Marxism) to discursive construction requires a systemic denial of Marxist approaches.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Roland Boer
Roland Boer is a professor based at the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China. He has published many works on Marxist philosophy, including the five-volume work, The Criticism of Heaven and Earth (Brill 2007–2014). In 2014, it was awarded the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize for the most innovative work in the Marxist tradition. Most recently, he has published Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners (Springer 2021) and Friedrich Engels and Foundations of Socialist Governance (Springer 2021).