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‘NEO- LIBERALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS’ by Patrick O’Connor Q.C.

Patrick O’Connor Q.C. has written an article which exposes the reality behind neo-liberalism, its social values and attitude to ‘human rights’. [2018 EHRLR 541]

Patrick critically analyses the writings of Hayek, Jonathan Sumption, Keith Joseph,  Roger Scruton and the Judicial Power Project. He uncovers, especially in a book jointly written by Sumption and Joseph called ‘Equality’ in 1979, an elitist view of society, where the poor are born to stay poor, and redistributive taxation is ‘morally indefensible’. Such views are normally discreetly coded, but this quite shocking book gives a rare insight into the neo-liberal dystopia, which is a ‘hostile environment’ for human rights.