Liberalism, Fascism, and Their Different Conceptions of Rights

Abstract or Introduction

Human rights, civil rights, minority rights, animal rights, etc. – rights seem to affect every part of human life, and it appears that everyone is talking about them. Since the writings of ancient Greek philosopher Plato, rights have been an essential topic of philosophical and political as well as public debate. But what exactly are “rights”? One German philosophical encyclopedia, edited by famous scholar Otfried Hoeffe, defines rights as a normative set of rules which organize and regulate social coexistence by defining both what is allowed of people and what is owed to people. In other words: rights allow people to perform certain actions, but also restrict them from performing others, therefore imposing order and structure within human society, as well as reducing complexity. Still, the question remains how such an order created by rights might look like, since there is no universal consensus about the origin, nature, and distribution of rights. Where do these rights derive from? Is every person endowed with equal rights? What is there to do if the rights of one social entity interfere with those of another social entity? It is because of the importance of rights to social life that virtually every political ideology has been dealing with those and other questions, and every single one of them has come up with different answers. Thus, it turns out to be vital to one’s general understanding of rights to assess what different ideologies have to say about this topic. Additionally, one’s ability to judge different ideologies and therefore take (or consolidate) a political stance might be improved if he is aware of how these ideologies conceive of rights. Hence, in this essay I will contrast the different views of liberalism and fascism on political as well as on economic rights. Moreover, I will critically assess the implications of these two ideologies based on their protection of individual rights and come up with a conclusion why I favor the one mode of thinking about rights over the other.