Social rights: individual rights versus political prudence

Abstract

In the eighteenth century began one of the most exciting processes of the Humanity from the philosophical, political and social-organization point of view: the concept of human-rights, constitutionalism and a particular way of understanding the political and social organization emerged. For two hundred years the number of fundamental rights increased. Social rights grew dramatically in the late twentieth century, reaching important levels of public spending in the beginning of the XXI century. The financial situation of each moment has a direct impact on the resources available to fund social rights. To avoid social and political frustration of expectations of unsatisfied social rights, it is necessary that the instrument of subjective rights, applied as a technique for creating social rights, must be used together with a virtuoso political prudence.