Are Collective Worker Rights Enough?

Abstract

In Are Worker Rights Human Rights? Richard McIntyre, astride Marxian and institutionalist schools of economic thought, forcefully argues and illustrates how “rights talk” has time and again been at odds with the advancement of collective worker rights, be it in the context of the antislavery movement then or the antisweatshop movement now. After sketching the outlines of the book, this essay inquires whether collective worker rights themselves might similarly be at cross-purposes with the struggle against exploitation in the Marxian sense of the term. The essay also questions whether McIntyre's notion of social distance, while very useful in capturing and calling attention to the moral and legal remoteness of multinationals from workers at the other end of global commodity chains, might be leaving local class struggles over surplus overseas out of the picture.