The following musing is taken from the “Handbook of Transformation to Market Economy” written by Bibek Debroy and published by the the Liberal Institute of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in 2008. The text reproduced below is an excerpt from its second chapter titled “Freedom and Economic Freedom”.
In this chapter, Debroy details the conflict between negative and positive rights. He claims that problems arise when the state, entrusted to safeguard negative rights, begins catering for positive ones such as the right to education. Besides highlighting sources of conflict between modern-day planners and liberals, he also warns against the dangers of enforcing positive rights via centralized planning that threatens individual liberty.
Bibek Debroy is an Indian economist, serving as the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India. He is the author of several books, academic papers and popular articles and is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.
As human beings we ought to be assured of a minimum of core human rights. For example, these rights may cover security (protection against crime), liberty (belief, religion, association, assembling, movement), politics, due process (protection against abuses of the legal system), equality, welfare and so on. The existence of a state implies that some of these individual rights are going to be constrained, in the name of a greater public good. But which of these rights are inalienable or irrevocable, in the sense that they cannot be taken away by the state? Human rights that are called negative rights clearly belong to this category. The use of the expression “negative” implies that the state, or even a private body, cannot take action to remove these rights. Examples are right to life and individual security, freedom from slavery, equality before the law, due process followed by law, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and even the right to bear arms. These core human rights represent the essence of freedom and have been captured in legislation, national as well as international. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 is an example of such international legislation, although it is not quite a legally binding instrument. This declaration covers human, civil, economic and social rights. And such notions of negative rights are perfectly in consonance with what one understands by freedom and economic freedom.
The problem arises when one moves from negative rights to positive rights, also set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights are supposedly rights that the state must protect and provide. Examples are right to education, right to health-care and right to a livelihood. In the 30 Articles that constitute the Universal Declaration, these positive or economic rights occur towards the end. For example, Article 22 states, “Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each state, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.” Article 24 adds. “Everyone has the right to rest – and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” Finally, in Article 26(1) we have, “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory.” Many people wouldn’t regard these positive rights as core human rights that should be protected, unlike the negative ones. Indeed, these positive rights go against the notion of economic freedom, since their delivery adversely affects the freedom of others.
Be that as it may, there can be several different facets of freedom – civil, political and economic. In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote a very influential book titled “The Road to Serfdom.” This book not only represents the essence of what is now called economic freedom, it also makes the important distinction between negative human rights (the core) and positive human rights (the undesirable and the noncore). “Planning’ owes its popularity largely to the fact that everybody desires, of course, that we should handle our common problems with as much foresight as possible. The dispute between the modern planners and the liberals is not on whether we ought to employ systematic thinking in planning our affairs. It is a dispute about what is the best way of doing so. The question is whether we should create conditions under which the knowledge and initiative of individuals are given the best scope so that they can plan most successfully; or whether we should direct and organize all economic activities according to a ‘blueprint’, that is, ‘consciously direct the resources of society to conform to the planners’ particular views of who should have what .[…] The successful use of competition does not preclude some types of government interference. For instance, to limit working hours to require certain sanitary arrangements, to provide an extensive system of social services is fully compatible with the preservation of competition.”Or, “But there are two kinds of security: the certainty of a given minimum of sustenance for all and the security of a given standard of life, of the relative position which one person or group enjoys compared with others. There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision. It is planning for security of the second kind which has such an insidious effect on liberty. It is planning designed to protect individuals or groups against diminutions of their incomes.”
Read the complete handbook here.
