Presentation: The Mirage of Social Justice

Abstract

F. A. Hayek’s views on social and economic rights, as well as on many others issues, are quite clear and straightforward. He unequivocally maintains that:

The old civil rights and the new social and economic rights cannot be achieved at the same time but are in fact incompatible; the new rights could not be enforced by law without at the same time destroying that liberal order at which the old civil rights aim.¹

The reasoning that underpins this alleged incompatibility is based on two main statements: (1) there is an accusation of ‘vagueness and abstraction’ directly addressed towards the UN Declaration,² which would only decree rights without caring to know how and by whom they would be enforced; (2) there is the assumption that, if these new rights were to give rise to effective duties ascribed to effective agents, the results would be the destruction of the liberal order that allowed traditional rights to flourish and the destruction of the material wealth which is associated with that order.

To reject his half of the truth because he overlooked the other half, would be to fall into his error without having his excuse. For our own part, we have a large tolerance for one-eyed men, provided their one eye is a penetrating one: if they saw more, they probably would not see so keenly, nor so eagerly pursue one course of inquiry. Almost all rich veins of original and striking speculation have been opened by systematic half-thinkers.

John Stuart Mill, ‘Bentham’, 1838