Recorded on March 15, 2018, this video features Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law and History at Yale University, presenting "Human Rights in the Neoliberal Maelstrom." Marianne Constable, Professor of Rhetoric at UC Berkeley, served as the discussant.
The presentation, based upon Professor Moyn's book, "Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World," takes a position in a current debate about how to conceptualize the relationship between human rights and neoliberal globalization. The timing of the two phenomena — one in ethics and one in economics — has coincided, both rising since a 1970s breakthrough. But debate rages about whether to see human rights as the best tools to oppose their neoliberal Doppelgänger or to regard the new law and movements around rights — including economic and social rights — as part of the problem. This talk rejects both extreme positions in order to seek a different alternative. Of course human rights are a product of their time, but this hardly means they are easy to dismiss. However, as a set of ethical propositions and a set of practices, human rights are not what we need to confront economic injustice.
This event was part of the Rhetoric Spring Colloquium, and was co-sponsored by Social Science Matrix and the Human Rights Program. It was presented as part of the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix Solidarity Series. To learn more, visit matrix.berkeley.edu.