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Marxism and Human Rights against Capitalism

Publication Type:
chapter
Date Issued:
2022
Authors:
Daniel Hedlund , Magnus Nilsson
Publisher:
Brill Academic Publishers
Language:
eng
Page:
435-452
DOI:
10.1163/9789004505612_027
ISBN:
978-90-04-50560-5

Keywords:

human rights democracy advocacy welfare states Marxism and law civil society human nature citizenship progress Sweden humanism state prostitution sex work
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This article addresses Marxism and its relationship to human rights in a contemporary context. Our main argument is that universal human rights, as formulated, e.g., in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), cannot be fully realised under capitalism, but that a politics defending and promoting such rights has the potential to contribute to the advancement of internationalist, working class politics furthering political emancipation within the current order, and even to contribute to a socialist critique of the capitalist mode of production aiming for human emancipation.