Freedom in vertigo

For whom do human rights serve?

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze the problem of the philosophical-legal foundation of human rights. It states the question: to whom do Human Rights serve? Human Rights are considered the outcome of a historical victory for humanity. However, the unfolding of globalization and capitalism, particularly after the digital revolution, into savage, unbridled, total, and radical capitalism implied a situation that Marx detected almost 200 years ago: the abyss between the ways of life of two humanities. On the one hand, those who possess the means of production and exercise their citizenship within the ideological apparatus of the State, and on the other hand, the mere “abstract citizens,” the puppets who support the superstructures that perpetuate the maintenance of the status quo, which threatens the most precious asset that human beings possess: life. Thus, this article aims to critically investigate under which circumstances the hegemonic discourse that lies under human rights has established itself as a mechanism for subjectivizing and shaping contemporary societies, mainly through two institutions: freedom and private property. To achieve this goal, it will intertwine, on the one hand, an in-depth study of the fundamental principles of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, which contributed to the consolidation of Human Rights, and, on the other hand, the critique of Human Rights as articulated by Karl Marx.