ABSTRACT
The liberal theory of rights forms a major part of the cultural capital that capitalism’s culture has given us. The radical critique of rights is a Schumpeterian act of creative destruction that may help us build societies that transcend the failures of capitalism. This chapter develops one version of the critique of rights. It explores the epistemological basis of that critique. The chapter suggests some reasons to be skeptical of the claim that the idea of rights is politically useful and then develops an argument that the idea of rights is affirmatively harmful to the party of humanity. The conditions of the society define exactly what kind of rights-talk makes sense, and the sort of rights-talk that makes sense in turn defines what the society is. The chapter argues that rights-talk often conceals a claim that things ought to be different within an argument that things are as the claimant contends.
