Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time [a]

"As discussed in ""What Are Economic and Social Rights,"" Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have been marginalized in the evolution of the international and national human rights system. The source of this marginalization can be traced to two historical socio-political processes: male and class biases in liberalism and the post World War II cold war dynamics. However, there is yet another very important reason (which is inextricably intertwined with the capitalism / communism split) behind the marginalization of economic rights. That force is the dominant (orthodox) economic analysis and economic policy. The analytical framework of orthodox economics has historically been a very exclusive and narrow discourse based on highly restrictive assumptions about human nature, the good life, the good society and the structures that must be created to ensure the optimal operations of that society. Within this framework discussions of economic and social rights have been ignored, marginalized or otherwise subsumed under narrow discussion of efficiency, productivity, economic liberty, property rights and corporate rights. "

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the essential dignity and integrity of human beings. It recognized human beings entitlement to the means necessary to promote and protect human dignity. It also recognized the crucial and inextricable intertwinement between civil and political rights and access to resources and opportunities to utilize human capabilities for the self-realization necessary to assure and maintain personhood. This seeming comprehensiveness made the International Bill of Human Rights appear to be a radically progressive ideology which could simultaneously serve as both a set of fundamental values governing the human condition; a tool for critical consciousness raising about power structures; and a path to empowerment for much of humanity. However, as it would turn out this was not the case."