no rights under communism - yeah, right

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Thu Apr 4 19:20:54 PST 2002



>
> James Heartfield writes:
>
>"For Marx there are no competing interests under Communism, so no need
>for human beings to conceive of themselves as 'rights-bearing subjects'."
>
> I feel no fear of contradiction in saying that any reasonable person may
>simply reject this daft concept out of hand.

As far as whether we might not be rights-bearing beings under some circumstances, that's arguable. You are quite right about a world without any conflicts of interests, a view that has no textual basis in the mature Marx.


>"In other words, communism is not a social contract (or a contract of any
>kind) since there are no contracting parties. Social administration,
>ceasing to be contentious, will lose its special character to settle
>alongside any other scientific endeavour.

This id Engels, though one wonders why he thought administration is a better model than contract.


>The subtext that perhaps 'dlaw' finds difficult is that, for Marx
>(whether you agree with him or not) rights have no natural foundation,
>but remain a social product, and a historically transient one, that in
>given circumstances could fall away as a historical redundancy."

Here I agree with JH, although I do not imagined those ciecumstances will ever be realized.


>
> As long as there are disputes, there must be a system of logic for
>resolving disputes.

Here you are singing my song. I've argued for the need for law even under communism for this reason. That has no necessary connection to any notion of natural rights, though. Legal rights are social through and through.

jks

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