Towards a Reassessment of Ideological Dynamics M Shiviah In the aftermath of the failure of the Soviet Socialist experiment, the victorious social liberal (capitalist) camp led by the US is taking a narrow view of 'human rights ' in the third world, policing the observance only of civil and political rights. The affluent countries accept social and economic rights for their citizens via the welfare state but deny the same to the rest of the world. Third world countries should struggle for an international declaration and programme of human rights in the broader sense, including rights to resources, food, education, health, and a clean environment IF democracy is meaningless without civil and political rights, so is socialism with any credible claim to the deeper humanistic moorings of Marxism. The tragic failure of the Soviet experiment on this score seems to have eclipsed its historic achievements in furthering the cause of economic and social rights. Among their global spin-offs, not the least important one was the transformation of the old, laissez-faire, liberal state into the new, social liberal (welfare) state.
