Economics for Human Rights

The Subprime Crash that started capitalism’s latest crisis was mainly a proxy for an inexistent housing policy which would benefit many impoverished middle class families. Housing being clearly recognized as a human right, the behaviour of markets and its critical consequences could lead us to say that the Subprime Crash is above all the dramatic and global expression of the incapacity of markets to meet human rights. More than that, it could also be the demonstration of the counterproductive effects of the neglect of human rights by the market and by economics itself, the crisis being a result of this neglect. Human rights are assuredly one of the most influential and fruitful concepts of modern times in the human quest for dignity. Economics has developed a considerable amount of tools especially designed to overcome, or at least mitigate, scarcity, probably the most tormenting spectre that haunts the deprived. Human rights and economics, thus, have contributed immensely to free human kind, human rights from fear and economics from want. Despite this convergence it seems that economics regards human rights as competing rather than as completing. I have argued that mainstream economics discourse is often contradictory with promoting human rights. What are the changes economics must undergo in order to promote human rights? These changes will be examined in four aspects concerning specific economic, social and cultural human rights. First, on the right to work, second on the right to social security, third on cultural freedom, and finally on substantive democracy.Economics; Human Rights; Work; Cultural Freedom; Democracy.

The Political Economy Of The Human Right To Water

Water being essential to human survival, a political economy directed to satisfying human basic needs, should be especially concerned with the issue of water availability and distribution. Why is there such inequality in its distribution? This inequality represents a serious violation of a human right, as it will be developed in the paper and therefore should not be tolerated. The issue this paper wishes to address concerns the role played by economics in the unequal assertion of every people?s human right to clean water. First of all, what are we talking about when we talk about economics? A rapid overview can identify at least twenty schools of economic thought, from neoclassic to evolutionary, from Marxist to post-Keynesian. If one had to be accurate, a paper on the impact of economics on the human right to water human rights would then have to be divided in at least twenty chapters. The sort of economics we will be referring to in this paper results from a considerably narrower point of view: economics, here, will be mainstream economics, the school of thought which dominates not only within the academia, but also within the political cabinets and the media. More specifically, this paper will examine how mainstream economics discourse can be conflictive with human rights in general and the right to water in particular. First, within mainstream economic analysis satisfying wants implies the use of concepts like prices, supply and demand, or cost and benefit, and therefore, the issue is ability to pay, in other words purchasing power. With rights, on the other hand, the issue is quite different; the heart of the matter here concerns entitlement, the criteria according to which an individual should qualify to enjoy rights, purchasing power being obviously excluded as well as the consequences of the use of such criteria. Therefore it is perfectly admissible for economics to exclude from access to water those that do not have the capability to pay violating the basic principles of human rights. Second, by putting emphasis on the market as the default regulation institution, mainstream economics also hinders the human right to water because on one hand market is inefficient in reaching universal coverage of water supply and on the other hand it is an unaccountable institution and human rights purveyors need by principle to be submitted to democratic control.Human Rights, Right to Water, Economic Theory, Market.

Can Markets Secure Human Rights?

In recent years, State inefficiency in delivering some public goods to everybody has been the main argument set forth by those who sustain that markets should play a more active role in providing those goods and services that are needed to secure human rights. In result, in many parts of the world, we have been witnessing extensive privatization of social security and water distribution, for example. This article argues that markets are not fully equipped to play the role of a supplier of goods and services as human rights, and more specifically of the right to social security and the right to water. The main reason for this is that in the language of markets capability to pay is the key question whereas within the rights language it is entitlement. If in the first case exclusion and inequality are acceptable in the second case the only acceptable situation is the one characterized by inclusion and equality. In other words goods and services can be unequally distributed, rights cannot. Secondly a provider of goods and services as human rights must be a democratically accountable institution, whereas markets are anonymous, and therefore, unaccountable by definition. Finally, markets are also inefficient in providing goods and services as human rights, either because human rights “markets” are not competitive or because market incentives for private provision of human rights are notoriously weak.

The Political Economy of Democratic Governance and Economic Development

Pure mainstream economics, based on methodological and sociological individualism usually ignores politics; development economics, on the contrary frequently integrates social and political factors in order to explain economic progress. Within this branch of economics, politics can mainly be dealt in two different approaches. The classical and neoclassical approach takes politics essentially as an obstacle to the expression of agents’ rationality, and, therefore considers it a disturbance. A more heterodox approach of development, on the contrary, puts politics at the heart of the process, development being an economic as much as a political process. Those, like A. Sen, that take human rights, both as a means and an end to development do not separate the two processes as well. Be that as it may, and despite the opposed ways in which these approaches take politics, all consider governance, and its democratic or authoritarian character, a key factor in the development process. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of the issue of democratic governance within the development process. In the first part of the paper I will make a review of the main literature concerning the impacts of democracy on economic development and the importance of promoting democracy. In the second part of the paper the analysis will focus on the political economy of democratization, namely on the obstacles standing before democracy, and on the economic policies and reforms needed to facilitate democratization. The diagnosis states that democratization needs to deal with inequality of income distribution, with institutional design in order to overcome cultural divisions within the nations, with diversification of the sources of income and with a new economic order characterized by an erased debt burden and a more equitable distribution of the benefits of international trade

The role of traditional land use systems in the well-being of rural Timor-Leste

Natural ecosystems and traditional land use systems have an important role in the life and well being of the rural population of Timor-Leste. The land itself is the support of natural ecosystems and subsistence agriculture of rural populations of East Timor and is the main focus of this research. This paper is part of work in progress. Our research, located in rural Timor-Leste focuses on land tenure, rural family income and the mechanisms that will induce changes in the rules of traditional society organisation. The main objectives of this paper are: 1) to identify the different land use patterns of Timor-Leste; 2) to identify the goods and services produced by them and 3) to relate the services produced by land use patterns with the well-being of Timor-Leste rural population. This paper is based on a multidisciplinary approach incorporating contributions from several fields of knowledge, and uses documentary sources, direct observations made in various periods in the field and interviews conducted in 2003, 2009 and 2010. We identify as the main land use patterns in Timor-Leste the following ones: natural and semi-natural ecosystems, subsistence agriculture, sacred, housing and basic infrastructures and Industries and services. For Timor-Leste rural communities the above land use patterns produce a set of goods and services, which can be classified as supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural goods and services, and those are essential for their survival and well-being. The conceptual framework used to examine the above mentioned issues is the human rights approach to development within which human rights are considered as means and objectives of development as much as economic purposes.Timor-Leste, land use patterns, ecosystems goods and services, well-being.

The Right to Work and the Political Economy of Human Rights

The general purpose of this paper is to promote a political economy whose objective is to promote the deepening of human rights. In particular my attention will be focused on the political economy of the right to work.The first part of the paper concerns the description of the historical process that led to the proclamation of a right to work in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later on in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In this part we will also define in which consists the right to work. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the presentation of arguments that attempt to legitimize the right to work. For those members of the international community that have signed and ratified the proclamations described above the process through which they were approved confers the right to work plenty enough legitimacy. But given the highly political nature of the process that led to their adoption it should not come as a surprise that, especially among economists, economic rights are considered just a legal ornament. Therefore, it may be useful to search for different sources of legitimacy for human rights, and economic rights in particular, other than political and philosophical if one intends to make economics take economic rights seriously. The first argument is based on the inequality established in the capitalist system between the two contractors in the labour market, in this case freedom to work, in other words freedom to engage in contract, becomes meaningless without a right to work. The second argument arises from a basic ethical principle of economics. In order to live, that is in economic terms to consume, in other words, to satisfy needs or to acquire utility, one has to consent in sacrifice of an equivalent amount of utility of a different kind. In our society the sacrifice demanded from individuals for the satisfaction of one’s needs is the supply of a certain amount of work, or of a socially useful activity, except in cases of incapability resulting from misfortune. There is, therefore, an obligation to work. Now by definition, if work is an obligation in order to live, no one should be deprived of the access to it. The third argument in favour of the right to work concerns the social utility of the existence of such a right. The third part of the paper concerns the possibility of the existence of a competition between the right to work and the right to property. After concluding that this is not a problem I will focus on the conflict that seems more obvious, which is the conflict between the interests of capital and labour. There are two aspects of this conflict. The microeconomic aspect of this conflict concerns the fact that for firms unemployment is useful to attain certain objectives. For a long time unemployment, and the spectrum of hunger, has been seen as some sort of menace to workers in order to make them work harder and stay in line. At the macro economic level, unemployment appears to be an instrument in controlling inflation and full employment no longer a goal, regardless of the theory one professes, Philips curve or Natural Rate of Unemployment in any of its versions. The fourth part of the paper concerns the responsibility for ensuring the right to work. Is it a state or a corporate responsibility? Generally it is admitted that in terms of human rights the responsibility is the State’s. But this would also means that firms would then externalise the social costs of their activity which is not coherent with the new wave of Corporate Social Responsibility. Finally the last part of the paper will concern the policy implications of the right to work. Sustaining that ensuring the right to work means to promote full employment with decent jobs I will analyse the traditional instruments used to create jobs in the advanced countries and conclude that not all public action aiming to just creating jobs qualifies to right to work securing policy if it contributes to an erosion of the rights at work. In the end I will suggest that the only policy that seems to qualify in present economic circumstances is to share the asset work by substantially reduce the working hours

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER

A água é essencial à sobrevivência humana. Uma economia política humanizada, isto é dirigida para a satisfação das necessidades básicas, deve preocupar-se com a questão da disponibilidade e distribuição de água. No que diz respeito à satisfação das necessidades básicas, podemos afirmar que é relativamente fácil e barato fornecer água para todos. Porque razão, então existe uma desigualdade na distribuição? Esta desigualdade representa uma violação séria de um direito humano, como será desenvolvido à frente, e não deverá ser tolerada. Este artigo trata do papel que a economia desempenha no desigual exercício do direito humano de acesso à água potável. Este artigo examina como o discurso da economia dominante pode entrar em conflito com os direitos humanos em geral, e o direito à água em particular. No âmbito da teoria económica dominante, a satisfação de necessidades implica a utilização de conceitos como preço, oferta, procura, custos e benefícios, e por conseguinte a questão é capacidade de pagar ou poder de compra. Com os direitos, o assunto é diferente, sendo a questão principal, o critério de acordo com o qual um indivíduo está habilitado a usufruir dos direitos, não podendo por isso ser utilizado o critério do poder de compra. Para a economia é perfeitamente admissível excluir do acesso à água aqueles que não têm capacidade de pagar, violando princípios básicos dos direitos humanos. A economia dominante ao pôr toda a ênfase no mercado como a instituição reguladora, torna invisível o direito humano à água. Por um lado o mercado é ineficiente em atingir uma cobertura universal de água potável e por outro lado o mercado é uma instituição que não presta contas e a satisfação dos direitos humanos precisa por princípio de ser submetido ao controlo democrático. ---------------------------------------------Water being essential to human survival, a humane political economy, in other words a political economy directed to satisfying human basic needs, should be especially concerned with the issue of water availability and distribution. In what the satisfaction of basic needs is concerned, one could fairly safely state that it is relatively easy and cheap to provide access to water to everybody. Why is there such inequality in its distribution then? This inequality represents a serious violation of a human right, as it will be developed in the paper, and, therefore, should not be tolerated. The issue this paper wishes to address concerns the role played by economics in the unequal assertion of every people’s human right to clean water. First of all, what are we talking about when we talk about economics? A rapid overview can identify at least twenty schools of economic thought, from neoclassic to evolutionary, from Marxist to post-Keynesian. If one had to be accurate, a paper on the impact of economics on the human right to water human rights would, then, have to be divided in at least twenty chapters. The sort of economics we will be referring to in this paper results from a considerably narrower point of view, though. Economics, here, will be mainstream economics, the school of thought which dominates not only within the academia, but also within the political cabinets and the media. More specifically, this paper will examine how mainstream economics discourse can be conflictive with human rights in general and the right to water in particular. First of all, within mainstream economic analysis satisfying wants implies the use of concepts like prices, supply and demand, or cost and benefit, and therefore, the issue is capability to pay, in other words purchasing power. With rights, on the other hand, the issue is quite different; the heart of the matter here concerns entitlement, the criteria according to which an individual should qualify to enjoy rights, purchasing power being obviously excluded, and the consequences of the use of such criteria. Therefore it is perfectly admissible for economics to exclude from access to water those that do not have the capability to pay violating the basic principles of human rights. Secondly by putting emphasis on the market as the default regulation institution mainstream economics also hinders the human right to water because on the one hand the market is inefficient in reaching universal coverage of water supply and on the other hand it is an unaccountable institution and human rights purveyors need by principle to be submitted to democratic control.Human rights, Water, Market, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,