Blog 7, 6/17: Equal Rights

"This status was clearly an aid, and not a menace, to capitalism and the free-market economy because it was dominated by civil rights, which confer the legal capacity to strive for things one would like to possess but do not guarantee the possession of any of them…But these blatant inequalities are not due to defects in civil rights but to lack of social rights…"  

The status T. H. Marshall is referring to, in this quote from "Citizenship and Social Class," is citizenship. He describes civil rights as "rights necessary for individual freedom." They consist of freedom of speech, religion and press; right to own property and the right to due process of law. While citizenship is a system of equality which promotes capitalism, capitalism is a system of inequality. Capitalism is driven by civil rights, "natural rights," which gives people the right to certain things but not necessarily the means to obtain them. As explained by Marshall, it is every citizen's civil right to own property, but it would be a lot easier for a millionaire to acquire that property than it would be for a poor person to obtain the same property. He explained this difference of means as an inequality due to lack of social rights.  

Marshall's idea that people's means, or lack thereof, is defined by social rights is the basis of class divide and the critical driving force of the concept; the richer get richer while, the poorer get poorer. What good is freedom of speech or freedom of the press if one does not know how to read or write because a fundamental social right, such as free education, was not afforded to them?