PHM-Exch> Food for a cuckoos thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 243

WE ARE REALLY IN CLOUD CUCKOOLAND IF WE ACCEPT THAT NEOLIBERALISM IS A
BENIGN SOCIAL IDEA THAT BACKS THE HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORK. (Theodore
MacDonald)


People in a healthy society are mindful of the human rights of all of its
members.

In neoliberal orthodoxy, certain inalienable laws govern the give-and-take
of market forces and to interfere with the self-regulation of markets is to
court economic suicide. In that sense, the neoliberal outlook regards market
forces as being akin to the great force fields in physics, such as magnetism
or thermodynamics. In other words, like these other forces, humans must
respond according to the laws of the market or face annihilation. The entire
edifice of neoliberla rationality and certainty is thus based purely on the
basis of financial* considerations*.*
*: This outlook is, for sure, not new. It just has had a number of
incarnations since the early days of history; we now call it neoliberalism.

But to mediate in conflicts between interests and, for sure, to defuse human
rights (HR) violations, it is the government that must play the dominant
role…That is why we invented it! Therefore, such ideas as markets being
allowed to make major social, political and HR decisions without the
mediating influence of the government as a duty bearer are simply nonsense.
No wonder democracy is seen as an obstacle, as a barrier by the proponents
of orthodox neoberalism.

The full text can be found in http://wp.me/plAxa-1ak

Claudio
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