Bhikhu Parekh in his essay titled The Modern Conception of Rightd and its Marxist Critique sets out

the twin goals of establishing that the modern concept of right as a self-evident material concept is a
relatively recent one, which is also fraught with paradoxes and contradictions, and to study the highly
influential Marxist critique of this new concept of right, in which the concept of right is not central.

The author states that we are so used to the modern concept of right that we have forgotten that in pre-
modern times, societies existed without the conscious awareness of rights and still there was freedom
and liberty. In the Roman Empire, the rights conferred were not individualistic but those conferred
upon man by the community for the realization of its common purpose, e.g. the rights of the head of a
family. Rights were constrained not only by law but customs and usage also. Moreover, rights were
not absolute and governed relationship only between individuals and not between them and the state.
In the feudal society, individuals acquired rights through a quasi-contractual relationship of reciprocal
and limited duties of performing in a certain way since the other party had a right to require him to so
act. But, with 17th cent. came some important changes in four areas subject of right, its object, the
relations between the two and the place of right in moral and political life.

The Subject of Right In 17th cent. society individual is the primary subject of rights. The theory of
individuation, defines an individual as a biological organism, neatly encapsulated in the body, and
separated from its surrounding nature. Body became the criteria of reality, and Life & Liberty became
the highest moral values. Violence is defined only in terms of physical and not psychic or moral. A
mans freedom was thus restricted only when he was physically restricted and not when his ideas or
beliefs were restricted.

The Object Everything in the natural world becomes an object of right and capable of alienation
as individual becomes a collection of such rights over which he has absolute control and can thus
alienate such rights. Since everything about an individual is alienable, the essence of his identity lies
in his capacities of reason & will that ensure his freedom and self-determination. If rights stood as
the very existence of man and not just his possessions, then he would not be able to alienate them.

The rights of Life, Liberty and Property became the most important after the above definitions of the
object and subject of rights. But they were rights of protection (by the government). Second half of
the 19th cent. added Social & Economic Rights which were the rights to provision (of sustenance and
growth), requiring the government to ensure the same and the citizens to positively contribute (e.g.
taxes) to help the government. Thus, these newer rights entailed within themselves a duty to help
others and regard man not as atomic individuals of a civil society but as a political community of
interdependent individuals, each caring and concerned for the other, thus bringing in a radical change
in the prevailing roles of the government and the nature of the state.
The Definition of Right Post 17th cent. a right has the following features: A claim (which others
must respect and recognize and which is non-arbitrary), that the bearer is entitled to make, which is
unambiguously conferred upon the individual by Civil Law the only source of right and which
grants the freedom to do whatever one likes with it in conformity with the conditions of its grant. It is
an exclusive claim as others are not only prevented from accessing it but also requires them to render
a set of services thereby imposing hardships on them. This has led to the corrosion of traditional
moral values that weakens civic pride and unity. Rights are legally enforceable by the machinery of
the state and thus take the form of a power. Lastly, being a formal title ones possession of it does not
ensure ones ability to exercise the right.

Equality of rights is a misnomer. Rights confer both benefits and burdens and the intensity of both
differs from right to right. Those in a position to exercise burdensome rights impose far greater
burdens upon their fellow men than those who are not. Moreover, a right may exist even when it is not
a worldly reality, e.g. a person has the right to sue but not enough money to employ a lawyer.

The Obsession with Rights In pre-modern society moral conduct based on principles of
community bond were the central organizing principle of society. In modern societies however, these
bonds have disappeared with the rise of self-motivated, mutually suspicious free individuals who
relate to each other only in terms of rights. Such individuals thus turn to the modern state to hold them
together and maintain order, thereby replacing the traditional bonds with the modern state as the
central organizing principles of the society. The order thus achieved is the system of rights and
obligations created by the state called civil morality which becomes the primary form of morality so
much so that people are unable to conceptualize moral relations in terms other than rights. A good
deed done for another when the latter has no such legal right to claim it and thereby no obligation on
the former to do it, is brought under the civil morality by creating a new set of rights and obligations
thereby.

Right-centred moral thinking goes to extremes when it is contended that children have rights to
parental maintenance, love and even inheritance, and that parents have corresponding duties. A matter
of love is reduced to a duty which is conceived as a demand originating from a childs right. It is
ignored that a family, not being a civil society, cannot be subject to civil morality and in cases where
parents maltreat their children they can be punished without introducing the language of rights.

Thus, rights have come to acquire a monopoly of moral legitimacy such that even the most basic
human needs have to be expressed in terms of a right and all morally desirable conducts are reduced
to duties entailed by others actual or hypothetical rights. Moral and political disputes are weighed
on the scale of rights and we are in a constant effort to establish our rights to rights or the
unshakable foundation of rights, lest the state arbitrarily curtail/withdraw them or not create at all.
The Marxian Criticism: For Marx rights is a device to legitimize the inequality of the Capitalist
society which is based on the two conflicting requirements of regarding man as a commodity whose
skills can be alienated, making him saleable, and as an abstract person (and not a human being)
having equal rights, which they cannot even exercise equally. By legitimizing the egoistic pursuit of
self-interest, capitalists alienate man from man and give an illusion of rights to the worker who
remains chained to the capitalists even on changing the employer thus preventing class solidarity and
continuing exploitation.

Want of clarity in Marxs critique led to two mistaken conclusions. Firstly, that rights in a capitalistic
society facilitates class domination by providing an illusory sense of security. Secondly, that such
rights are based on material scarcity and unsocial individuality whereas a communist society provides
abundance and social cooperation. However, Marx opines that equal rights are real and the capitalists
compulsion (the inherent self-contradiction) to advocate the same provides a weapon against them as
rights bind them to certain norms and provides the proletariat an environment to organize and grow.
The second conclusion finds support in Marxs writings, where his society excludes all that is
characteristic of capitalists. He held the form (realm of thought and institutions) as distinct from the
content (productive forces), only the latter being preservation-worthy. But, Marx failed in providing a
clear criterion for such distinction and he knew that content and form were inseparable and thus he
shouldve drawn a distinction at the level of form which could be preserved, observes Bhikhu Parekh.

Marx does not reject the theory of rights altogether but criticizes the extreme concepts of both the
atomic individual and individual as a social organism. He recognized the importance of individuality,
however he wanted to purge it of the bourgeois distortions. This led him to realize that institutional
recognition of rights and material basis of personal property are necessary bases of individuality as
without them it was abstract and unreal as such a situation would tantamount to idealism.

Hence, Marx proposes his theory of rights in which human beings, not juristic persons, become the
bearer of rights and the development of their creative attributes the object of it. Cooperation prevails
over competition and rights lose their exclusivity. Mutual suspicion withers away and conflicts are
resolved through persuasion and recognition of common interests. Law plays only a directive and
advisory role and rights cease to be the only bases of social morality. Development of one man
inspires the others. Thus, Parekh concludes Marx does not and cannot dispense with the concept of
right altogether and those who believe that individuality is a bourgeois illusion and hence
capitalistic rights are not required in a communist society filled with flawless people, commit a
grave mistake. Additionally, Marxs thought is capable of offering an alternative theory of rights
which defines rights in a non-possessive/exclusive/aggressivemanner and which proposes rights
other than those emphasized in the past three centuries and which provides for a sensitive society
comprising of cooperative people who do not bludgeon each other with their titles and rights.