Project for Global Democracy and Human Rights

Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Dans le fait les lois sont toujours utiles à ceux qui possèdent et nuisibles à ceux qui n’ont rien. D’où il suit que l’état social n’est avantageux aux hommes qu’autant qu’ils ont tous quelque chose et qu’aucun d’eux n’a rien de trop.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du Contrat Social

We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people – whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth – is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure…We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 11 January 1944 message to Congress on the State of the Union


The political costs of inequality

Another cost of inequality: Corruption

Franklin Roosevelt on social and economic rights

Treaties:

Statistical indicators:

Health care


© 1996, 1999 Andrew Reding, Project Director and Senior Fellow, World Policy Institute

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