Samuel Moyn led off this discussion by arguing that “even perfectly realized human rights are compatible with radical inequality.” Phillip Alston derides that notion as “patent nonsense” and argues that human rights “demand” that states take steps to end extreme inequality. It’s possible that neither of them is entirely wrong. But even if Moyn is correct that it’s possible to imagine a world where extreme inequality and the full enjoyment of fundamental human rights exist side by side, it’s quite clear that this imaginary world is not the one we live in.
Extreme inequality is not in and of itself a human rights violation, but it is a profoundly important human rights problem. Inequality is inextricably bound up with the denial of people’s full enjoyment of all human rights and of economic, social and cultural rights in particular. It is also one of the most powerful currents that pushes people into the kind of political marginalization that leaves them vulnerable to abuse and bereft of meaningful access to remedy. Some human rights abuses may well only be remedied by addressing the inequality that helps make them possible.
Philip Alston criticizes Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for what he calls our “deep reluctance” to factor “questions of resources and distribution” into our research and advocacy. And in point of fact, Amnesty, Oxfam and other human rights groups have gone further than we at Human Rights Watch have in explicitly calling for efforts to roll back what they call “an inequality crisis that is spiraling out of control.”
