Collective Rights: A Contradiction in Terms

Collective Rights: A Contradiction in Terms
China Post editorial
by Bevin Chu
June 29, 2009

Since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression “individual rights” is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today’s intellectual chaos). But the expression “collective rights” is a contradiction in terms. Any group or “collective,” large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members.
-- Ayn Rand

One problem bedeviling modern political discourse is intellectual chicanery by political con men, facilitated by intellectual befuddlement on the part of the general public.

One abomination arising from this intellectual chicanery is the stolen concept of "collective rights."

By definition, there can be no such thing as "collective rights."

Take the sanctimonious rhetoric of the Taiwan independence movement for example. It's bad enough that champions of Taiwan independence bandy about such higher level abstractions as "freedom," "human rights," "democracy," without bothering to identify their concrete referents. At least such higher level abstractions have concrete referents.

What's worse is that champions of Taiwan independence also bandy about such stolen concepts as "Taiwan's right to self-determination." Such stolen concepts have no concrete referents whatsoever.

To better understand why there can be no such a thing as "collective rights," and why a collective such as "Taiwan" (or "America," "China," or "Japan") can never have a "right to self-determination," let's revisit Daniel Defoe's classic tale, "The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe."

Robinson Crusoe was originally published in 1719, and is considered the first novel ever written in English. It is a "faux autobiography" of an English castaway who survives for 28 years on a tropical island before finally being rescued.

Free market economists frequently use Robinson Crusoe to make points about human survival and human rights. One such point is that when Robinson Crusoe first found himself stranded on a desert island, he had no need for rights whatsoever.

It was not that Robinson Crusoe lacked rights. All human beings have rights. All human beings are born with rights. No human being may be deprived of his rights.

But the simple fact is that as long as Robinson Crusoe was alone on the island, he did not need rights. He did not need rights because rights are necessary only in the presence of other human beings.

Robinson Crusoe needed rights only when other human beings, including cannibals and mutineers, landed on the island. These other human beings could violate Robinson Crusoe's rights. When these other human beings appeared, that's when Robinson Crusoe suddenly needed rights.

As Ayn Rand put it, "a right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context." To possess a right means to enjoy freedom of action, free from coercion by other men.

Rights are not necessary to protect an individual from nature. Rights cannot protect an individual from nature. Rights cannot protect an individual from nature, because nature, in the form of carnivorous animals, poisonous plants, or a harsh climate, is incapable of respecting the rights of a human being.

Rights are useful only in protecting an individual from other human beings, who can choose to respect an individual's freedom of action, providing they hold his human rights sacrosanct.

Rights are necessary only in protecting an individual from other human beings, who can choose to violate an individual's freedom of action, in the event his human rights become an inconvenience.

Human rights are the rights of the individual human being to be protected from other human beings. Collectives of human beings are the victimizers of individual human beings. Collectives of human beings are precisely what rights were intended to protect individual human beings from.

Is it clear now why the notion of "collective rights" is a contradiction in terms? Is it clear now why the notion of "collective rights" is a "stolen concept?"

The notion of "collective rights" steals rights from the individual and turns them over to the collective. The notion of "collective rights" steals rights from their rightful owners and turns them over to their usurpers. The notion of "collective rights" steals rights from victims and turns them over to their victimizers.

The notion of "collective rights" is an ideological steamroller beloved by collectivists of all stripes, from Maoists on the Communist left, to champions of Taiwan independence on the fascist right, who use it to flatten any uncooperative individuals who might stand in their way.

The notion of "collective rights" is an affront to logic, to the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. What's worse, the notion of "collective rights" is an affront to justice, to the fair and equitable treatment of all individuals under the law.