“The French Revolution proclaimed the Rights of Man. A revolution could do no more; it destroyed a world, it could not rebuild one. Rights are the sacred heritage of every human creature, but they are sterile unless won by virtue and fertilised by sacrifice. Rights do not suffice to regenerate a people; and it is not by invoking them alone that nations are created or sustained. I do not ask you to renounce those rights; I ask you to understand and fulfil the duties which create them. Duties are the root of Rights: when you have accomplished the one, the other will not long be denied you.”
Giussuppe Mazzini
Mazzini highlights that our rights are not truly natural to us; they are created by duties fulfilled. But what does this mean?
It means these “rights” do not come from nothing.
Imagine the right to education. One can declare it, and many do, but that does not make it a right. The same is said of healthcare, obviously. What truly guarantees the right to education?
First, citizens must fulfill their obligations to pay taxes, teachers must fulfill their obligations to teach, and governments must fulfill their obligations to provide it. A right is not an entitlement; it is the finished product of an obligation or duty. In contrast, the modern understanding of our liberties is that we have them naturally, that our rights come first, and only then can we fulfill our obligations, when in reality, it is impossible to have these liberties if we as a society are not actively working to create them. What a libertarian may claim is that no true right requires the labor of others, when in reality, all rights do. Our right to vote requires the civic labor of an educated and engaged population. Our right to justice requires judges and citizens to uphold the law; all rights must be realizable in the social community, otherwise they are merely abstract claims, and importantly, they rest on mutual obligation, not the atomized individual. Does this change anything legally about the status quo? Of course not, Mazzini emphasizes, “I do not ask you to renounce those rights; I ask you to understand and fulfil the duties which create them,” which should be clarified; this is not a call to radically shift American legal protections, but rather to acknowledge how these rights come to be. For it is unfortunate that our schools do not teach these values of civic virtue and that there is no emphasis placed on obligations to anything. Our democracy is only as healthy as the people within it, for as long as rights are taken for granted, we are bound to lose them.
To some extent, this is not entirely different from the concept of the social contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for it merely provides a greater clarification for what the social contract should consist of beyond the legal framework.
It places emphasis on the moral responsibility of its citizens as a precondition for the social contract’s existence.
All rights derive from the social contract, and these rights derive from the active labor of its participants to realize them.
Which brings us to the idea of economic freedom.
To obtain land or a business, one must assert “I have exclusive access to this and reserve the right to do as I please with it.” Nothing is particularly wrong with this assertion in and of itself, but now the owner has an obligation to society so that it may acknowledge this right. This right is respected only insofar as it is beneficial to its consumers, workers, and neighbors. What you sell, produce, and operate should be of service to the common good. One can only imagine why this needs to be said, because it is easy to see the businesses of today existing almost in spite of national interests, companies that will gladly pollute their environment, peddle harmful goods to their consumers, and underpay their own workers. It is understood that, naturally, a private enterprise is in service of profit; there is nothing wrong about this pursuit, and there are benefits to a profit motive, but this pursuit should not be at odds with the collective welfare of the very people who work to protect this right.
To correct this, it is imperative that the state protects the environment, consumers, and labor to ensure that these economic rights are in service to the general welfare.
One primary concern with our call to recognize the necessity of obligations to society is that many will consider us collectivists because we reject the existence of natural rights and only acknowledge the rights created by the community. It is easy to assume that we reject individualism itself. We reject the atomized individual, and so therefore must be collectivists.
Mary Parker Follett identifies this debate for what it is, a false dichotomy.
“The group is not something that comes between the individual and his freedom; it is the means by which he realizes his freedom.”
Only through our relationship with others do we unlock our individuality, the state of nature that existed prior to the creation of governments did not produce poets or scholars, when we banded together to create the social contract that laid down laws, policies, and obligations only then did we truly create free and independent people.
A collective community is only as good as the individuals within it, a flourishing community creates a flourishing individual, and flourishing individuals create a flourishing community. We must stand above this ridiculous idea that our ability to work with other human beings has made us less free.
We are not less free with a state; rather, the state is what makes us free, a state that is funded by us, elected by us, and composed of us. It is not an institution ruling over us; rather, it is the ultimate manifestation of our will. Again, with referencing Follett, she states
”The state is not something apart from us; it is us, acting together.”
The role of the state is clearly to express the general will of the people, but to go further than that, the state is our tool to create conditions for man to achieve the will to power.
Nietzsche’s will to power is to overcome resistance and shape one's own reality; an example of this is artistic expression, self-mastery, and elevating one’s own existence. It is not the domination of others but rather the empowering of oneself.
Our reform of education, the economy, the government, everything, is all for the greater purpose of creating a nation in which self-mastery is possible.
How can a man become all he is meant to be when he is impoverished? How can he create beautiful wonders when he is overworked? How can he live if he is only surviving?
We acting together possess the ability to advance the state in its efforts to elevate man to his highest potential and calling, to create poets, artists, musicians, scholars, philosophers, and so much more.
Only in the collective do we create individuals, and only through service are we truly free.