Social Rights Are Human Rights
* Social Rights Are Human Rights. BUT THE UK SYSTEM IS RIGGED. by Professor Paul Hunt. Centre for Welfare Reform, 2018
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Excerpt
From the foreword by Paul Mason:
"As early as 1938, those who designed the current economic order understood that the state would become their main tool; that markets do not create and maintain themselves but have to be imposed and re-imposed through law, regulation and, where necessary, coercion.
In the face of this, the concept of workers’ rights - which has guided the activities of the main counter-power within capitalism, the labour movement - has proved insufcient. As the progressive left fightback unfolds in Europe, the idea of social rights has gained traction.
Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) is a social movement for the realisation of the right to housing in Spain. During the country’s economic crisis, banks began to evict homeowners, thousands of families lost their homes, and many became homeless. PAH emerged in Barcelona and quickly spread to other parts of Spain. It organised peaceful protests, successfully delaying or halting many evictions. Crucially, PAH used the right to housing to galvanise popular resistance and this contributed to positive changes in law and policy.
It is just one example of the way social justice movements are using the internationally protected and formally stated social rights to legitimise resistance, such as the rights to an adequate standard of living, afordable housing, accessible education, an equitable health system, and social security based on respect, not sanctions.
This report explains what social rights are, why they are especially important to disadvantaged individuals and communities, and why they are so little known in the United Kingdom. It gives real-life examples from Leith, Belfast, York and elsewhere demonstrating the roles that social rights can play. As we resist austerity and prepare for a transformative change in British politics, we need to expand the tools at our disposal.
Social rights are not a panacea, but this report, which outlines both the concept and its application, is a useful starting point if we want to expand our debates about strategy and tactics, learning from successful social movements beyond Britain’s borders." (https://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/uploads/attachment/584/social-rights-are-human-rights.pdf)