When Splitters become Lumpers: Pitfalls of a Long History of Human Rights « Law and Political Economy - 0 views
-
Bill Fulkerson on 14 Aug 18"For a close reader of Moyn's work on human rights the differences between his two works are head-spinning. Where Last Utopia attacked the very idea of historic continuity in explaining the human rights movement that emerged in the 1970s, Not Enough builds an entire narrative on continuities. The result is an aspirational history for a reformed human rights movement, a history of roads not taken - with respect to equality, in particular, which Moyn elevates to the 'original' position - that can still be reclaimed. Not Enough lacks the skepticism that Moyn employed so effectively in The Last Utopia to explain how disconnected contemporary human rights was from its claimed antecedents and undermines arguments in both books. In addition, by not heeding his own lessons from Last Utopia, Moyn understates the emergent human rights movement's inability to contest what became neoliberalism. As someone who confronted those issues at the time, it is harder to dismiss the claims of complicity."