The Great Depression and socialist threat drove inclusion of social rights in the UDHR

Evidence

Meeting in the wake of the Great Depression, they were deeply aware of what the republican political theorist Hannah Arendt termed ‘the terrifying predicament of mass poverty’. The previous decades had made clear that individual effort and personal responsibility were painfully inadequate in the face of mass unemployment and social dislocation – and that state inaction risked fostering rebellion. The rise of socialism and communism had placed ‘the social question’ on the international political agenda – including at the United Nations. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 150

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘social question’ as a political survival imperative connects to the reader’s work on why elites concede welfare — parallels the stabilizing-function argument about sacrifice in stratified societies. — connects to: The Great Depression’s financial storms convinced intellectuals that humanity was one indivisible economy — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 294; 1940s drafters of the UDHR saw social rights as a working-class victory — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 149; US Cold War anti-communism reshaped the drafting of social and economic rights — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 190 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• 1940s drafters of the UDHR saw social rights as a working-class victory #corroborates (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 149
• US Cold War anti-communism reshaped the drafting of social and economic rights #complicates (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 190
• The UDHR’s social and economic rights were designed to pacify, not radicalize #qualifies (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 180