ABSTRACT
A focus on human rights represents an attempt to specify the standards of non-oppressive rule as an entitlement of all peoples, whatever their stage of development, cultural heritage, ideological persuasion, or resource base. In effect, the claims embodied in human rights take precedence over the prerogatives of state sovereignty, and acknowledge the oneness of the human family as a normative premise. The developmental crunch in the Third World has generated a wide array of authoritarian political solutions. Comparing the record of socialism and capitalism with respect to the protection of human rights seems like a useful way to consider whether there is any systemic regularity that flow from a given ideological orientation. From the viewpoint of human rights the prescriptive challenge is to reconstruct socialist practice so as to achieve greater overall protection of human rights, or alternatively, to comprehend at the level of theory the consistent betrayal in practice of socialist ideals.
