Greetings ...
Thank you for the interesting comments. I'm afraid, however, I found them
a bit desultory. Not knowing how to respond, let me just clarify my
earlier statements.
1.
My concern with legal rights as an instrument of 'poverty alleviation' or
'reduction of descrimination against the poor' involves their: (1.)
inherent lack of potence with respect to policy issues that do not easily
conform to the structure of legal institutions and discourse; and (2.)
and the constraints faced when trying to give such rights teeth. When
advocates of social rights in the early 2/3rds of this century talked
about rights, they did not speak of rights in a formal legal sense, but as
a moral appeal for a welfare state that does not leave an excluded
underclass.
My further concern is the lack of uniformity by which legal rights
(often inappropriately called "guarantees") are applied, for clearly not
all Canadian jurisdictions would be willing to add poverty discrimination
to their human rights codes. More importantly, there is something
rather contradictory about providing legal rights to alleviate
poverty, for the impoverished are the constituency who are least likely to
make use of the legal system on account of the high cost, highly esoteric
language and procedures, etc. Legal action funds have proven to be a poor
solution, and vulnerable to the spending whims of elected officials. My
larger point is not that rights constitute a major constraint. To the
contrary, they are not much of a constraint to policy makers or
economic actors generally.
2.
This leads to my second clarification: I think we have to be suitably
realistic about the capacity of our policy instruments. In a society and
economy that is becoming increasingly diverse, blunt instruments (such as
untailored regulation) can make an impact, but often one
not intended by policy makers and with potentially adverse second-order
consequences. Hence, "first, do no harm." My meaning is simply this:
if faced with a problem (e.g. undesirable distribution of working hours),
reflect on the causes of problem and the consequences of policy actions
before implementing knee-jerk responses (i.e. use the state's coersive
power to redistribute working hours).
Thanks again for your attention.
Cheers, Peter.
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Peter Stoyko
Carleton University Tel: (613) 520-2600 ext. 2773
Department of Political Science Fax: (613) 520-4064
B640 Loeb Building V-mail: (613) 731-1964
1125 Colonel By Drive E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ottawa, Canada, K1S 5B6 Internet: http://www.carleton.ca/~pstoyko
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