Lipman Bers

The human rights movement is sometimes accused of taking a parochial, purely “Western” approach, stressing “political” rights, like freedom of speech or freedom from arbitrary arrest and from torture, and neglecting “social” rights, like the rights to medical care, to education, and to a job. Without denying the importance of “social” rights, I consider the criticism unjustified. A demand that a government stop torturing political prisoners can be fulfilled relatively simply. A demand that a government provide a job to every citizen is meaningless without a reasonable plan of how such a goal can be accomplished. The human rights movement cannot be expected to develop such a plan or to unite on one.

Also, historical experience shows that a government that justifies its curtailment of political rights by its overwhelming concern for social rights usually ends up by denying all rights.

Finally, I consider the idea that people of the Third World are somehow less appalled by torture or by government-sponsored murder than citizens of developed nations to be rank racism.