Opinion: How do you protect human rights in a world that pushes for results?

By saying that high results cannot protect fundamental human rights, modern socialists forget that exactly these results led our world to the position where it is now: modern society where human rights are protected much stronger than at any time in the past.

All three concepts of human rights, religion and free market are closely interconnected as they all of them seek to encourage wealthy life. In fact, none of the concepts could exist without another. By having fundamental civil liberties and human rights, a person is able to control and develop his life as far as his religious believes allow him to do so.

In addition, the free market guarantees the plot for his personal development. It doe not only guarantees it, but it also motivates people to push themselves towards higher results, for they have absolutely the same potentiality as anybody else.

At this point, some of the already mentioned proponents of social justice would definitely throw in a worthless argument that free economy does not protect human rights at all; and it rather promotes opportunities for rich people to become even richer instead of helping the poor. Well, here is reality: during the last 200 years billions of the world’s population rise out of abject poverty. This statistic was reached neither by socially directed taxes nor by the charity. It was reached by high results that are the merits of free market.

Despite the fact that human rights are highly protected in our modern world, there is plenty of space for even stronger protection of them. However, this protection can only be strengthened by pushing for even higher results. So how that could be done?

The first suggestion (suggested by Acton Institute) is to ask “what causes wealth” instead of asking “what causes poverty”. In other words, instead of providing charity for the poor, people should teach the poor how to create wealth and how to push themselves for high results, because otherwise the simple aid, as Peter Bauer once said, will become the process by which poor people in rich countries help rich people in poor countries.

In addition, as it was discussed by Rev. Robert Sirico, these thoughts are not just assessments of economists from the West, it is also approved by a number of experts from the developing world.

The main problem is that people cannot help the poor simply by contributing donations for the poor countries as that does not encourage the poor to develop their own life; in fact, that kind of aid only supports an expectance of bigger aids.

Wealthy countries need to finally perceive the fact that the poor need business, which could raise their societies out of poverty. Otherwise, the aid will remain only a fight with windmills which will neither protect human rights nor lift people out of their poverty.

Another suggestion comes from the concept of free market itself: a person will not seek anything that he can get without any effort. In other words, in order to promote human rights, it is necessary to promote natural competition, which is one of the most crucial factors of the prosperity and improvement of human rights in general.

Competition could be introduced in many specific areas. For instance, it could be combined with ordinary charity by supporting only those people who will meet specific criteria. In addition to that, competition could be incited during the early stages of person’s life – for instance, during the years of school. Even simple sport tournaments or essay competitions with adequate prizes would be an appropriate stimulation of competitiveness.

These ‘affairs’ sound absolutely simple; however only small things have an ability to develop, and that development, consequently, will lead into more advanced protection of human rights. It might be hard to see connection between poverty, prosperity, free market, religion and human rights; however the connection is even stronger than strong.

The term of “society where everyone’s human rights are protected and everyone is equal” may sound appealing; however social equality and human rights are totally incompatible terms. In order to protect fundamental human rights, first of all, the poor need to be lifted out of poverty and that can be done only by motivating people to reach more, i.e. to reach better results.

(2013-06-16/spyghana)