Capitalism, Socialism and the Human Right to Development

ABSTRACT The “right to development” (RTD) is an important third generation human right that interrelates political and economic rights, challenging traditional economistic conceptions of development. However, the abstract and socially neutral human rights framework of the RTD results in problematic ambiguities. The relative weights of individual and collective rights to development, and political and economic aspects of the RTD are unclear. This renders the RTD “operationally meaningless” and vulnerable to co-optation. I argue that capitalism is inimical to the realization of the RTD, owing to its exploitative, alienating, and crisis-ridden character. Development cannot be properly understood as an abstract right but must be conceived as a concrete historical process of socialist transition. Development is neither a purely technical nor a purely ethical process, but a fundamentally social and intersocietal one. The dialectic of forces and relations of production is at the heart of this process, therefore development necessitates going beyond capitalist relations of production. Thus, the framework of socialist transition foregrounds the systemic roots of underdevelopment, and in doing so provides a basis for prioritizing between contradictory development policies. Hence, development should be understood and pursued through historical materialism and socialist praxis rather than a rights-based approach.