Jeremy Bentham described the Declaration of the Rights of Man by French
revolutionaries as “nonsense on stilts”. Nice rhetoric, but ultimately
unsuccessful. Since 1789 the idea of human rights has thrived. It now even
has its own day. This year’s Human Rights Day, was dedicated to the war on
poverty.
Bentham was right. The idea that we all enjoy certain rights, not because any
legal system gives them to us, but simply because we are humans, is silly.
But, in the 18th century at least, it was beneficial silliness.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are born equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that
amongst these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These
statements are not self-evident. They are not even true. They are
gobbledygook. Yet they inspired the Constitution of the United States, one
of mankind’s great achievements.
Alas, once nonsense is up and running, it is hard to rein in. Initially, our
self-evident human rights were simply protections against the abuse of
power. Today, entitlements to all manner of goods are making themselves
evident to human rights oracles. Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, claims that we have human rights “to food, to work, to
healthcare and housing”.
This inflation has changed the politics of human rights. Whereas human rights
once supported limited government, they are now invoked in favour of the
welfare state and the maximal government it requires. Which is why the human
rights movement, although well intentioned, has become a malign force.
In an article to mark Human Rights Day this month, Ms Arbour claimed that
poverty is caused by human rights violations. It is true, of course, that if
people had food, healthcare and housing, they would not live in poverty. But
it is absurd to say that lacking these things causes poverty. Lacking these
things is poverty. Why do millions of people lack decent food, healthcare
and housing? That is the question.
The human rights lobby sees poverty as an essentially legal problem. All
humans are entitled to food, healthcare, housing and so on. But countries
where poverty is common have failed to enshrine these entitlements in law.
If they embraced human rights, poverty would be legislated out of existence.
If you are tempted to agree, perhaps you will also like this idea. The
government should enrich us by passing a law that entitles all Brits to an
annual income of at least one million pounds. The difficulty, of course, is
that Britain’s GDP is considerably less than one million pounds per person.
It is impossible to provide everyone with this income.
The same goes for the more modest entitlements that human rights enthusiasts
claim to be universal. Providing every citizen with decent food, healthcare
and housing exceeds the productive capacity of many poor countries.
Mauritania’s annual GDP, for example, is only $400 per person. It would be
nice if Mauritanians were richer, but declaring that they should be will not
help. Entitlements to wealth do not create wealth. On the contrary, they
hinder wealth creation.
To see why, consider a less absurd entitlement. Suppose Gordon Brown
introduced a minimum household income guarantee of £40,000. This may appear
possible, since British GDP is now £52,000 per household. In fact, the
policy would soon defeat itself. Only dedicated Protestants would continue
to work. Those whose efforts would earn them less than £40,000 would not
bother, and nor would those who earn more, given the tax rates that would be
required to fund this entitlement. With mass indolence, the average
household income would soon fall well below £40,000, whatever the law said
we were entitled to.
Poor countries are not exempt from the perverse incentives created by
entitlements. In fact, they are more vulnerable to them. Where labour is
less productive, even modest entitlements will undermine the incentive to
work. In Britain we can guarantee all citizens food, healthcare and housing
without destroying economic incentives. But this is because we are already
rich. Such entitlements would devastate less developed economies.
The causes of poverty are debated by economists. Yet most agree that property
rights are essential for wealth creation. Without them, wealth cannot be
accrued. And if people cannot accrue wealth, they have little incentive to
create it. Why invest capital and effort in a business if you cannot feel
secure in your ownership of it, and of the profits that flow from it?
Communism and anarchy create poverty in the same way: by undermining
property rights.
Property rights are not universal entitlements. If I own some land then you do
not own it. You lack entitlements that I enjoy, such as the profits made by
farming that land. Such inequalities are inherent to property rights. Which
may explain why human rights activists do not care for them. In an 800-word
article on fighting poverty, Ms Arbour did not once mention property rights.
Instead, she lamented “unequal access to resources” — something entailed by
private ownership of them.
Tens of millions of Chinese have worked their way out of poverty in recent
years. It was not achieved by extending human rights law in China. Nor is it
an “economic miracle”. It is a predictable consequence of establishing
property rights.
Jamie Whyte is author of Bad Thoughts: A Guide to Clear Thinking
