Rights under the socialist society: To each according to his need.

Having achieved the end of a system that protects bourgeois rights, what rights are admissible in a system or society that the Marxian perspective treats as its own? Three considerations are important in a socialist system so far as rights are concerned.

Firstly, inequality of rights is done away with and equality of rights is established, as right to private property is abolished. Every one has an opportunity to work, contribute as per their capacity and share the benefits as per needs. The main principle of distributive justice in socialist system to begin with, would be ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.’ However, in a fully realized communist society, the principle, ‘to each according to his work’ will be replaced by ‘to each according to his need’. Initially, though a socialist system is established, the state remains and so do many elements of the old system and class contradictions. As such, the principle of distributive justice can only be what prevailed as bourgeois right. After the state withers away and elements of class contradiction disappear, rights would be based on the singular principle of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’. Here, instead of ‘work’ as basis of distribution (which is like property as per work and hence bourgeois right), ‘need’ as basis of distribution prevails. It is the right to equality that is important and the rest of the rights follow from it. Bourgeois right is based on right to inequality, socialist right is based on right to equality.

Secondly, primacy is given to economic rights over civil rights. This means when private property is abolished and the operative principle is ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his work’, there may not be need for other rights such as civil and political rights. Stalin once said, ‘What can be the “personal freedom” of an unemployed person who goes hungry and finds no use for his toil? Only where exploitation is annihilated, where there is no oppression of some by others, no unemployment, no beggary and no trembling for fear that a man may tomorrow lose his work, his habitation, his bread—only there is true freedom found.’

Thirdly, rights and duties are treated as correlated. The very principle, work as per ability and distribution as per need, provides that rights and duties are correlated. Each must contribute in order to share. Duties are treated as social obligation of man. However, this does not mean those who are unable or sick or challenged will have no luck. On the contrary, they are provided with social security and collective protection. The emphasis is on provision for basic material necessity.