INTRODUCTION

A Rights-Based Economy is not a natural result of market forces; it requires political intentionality and clear purposes to guide the economic organization. Thinking about an RBE is a complex and multidisciplinary task. It demands revisiting every aspect of economic relations from the perspective of rights and questioning the idea of social justice, which is implicitly present in economic theory and in the implementation of economic policy.

An RBE should not limit itself to protecting vulnerable groups in the face of market failures and undesirable social outcomes. Its purpose requires rethinking the organization of the economy as a whole and the distribution of economic resources and outputs based on normative standards offered by human rights. This contrasts with the mainstream economic view, which does away with the moral dimension of the economy and reduces social organization to a calculation problem of maximizing individual utility. The efficient functioning of markets does not necessarily result in an adequate economic organization from a human rights perspective.

This chapter aims to contribute to the discussion of an RBE by bringing the macroeconomic and development dimension into focus. To this end, its first section deals with the elements of a macro policy for an RBE; among these elements are the need to rethink monetary and exchange rate policy and the use of alternative instruments to fight inflation. Additionally, it points out that the logic of fighting inflation with unemployment is contradictory with respect to human rights. This section also addresses fiscal policy, which is crucial for the construction of an RBE, as it defines priorities in the allocation of resources through public spending and taxation. Fiscal policy for an RBE should go beyond Keynesian full employment stabilization and must redefine the concept of fiscal responsibility to include human rights as a final goal.

The following section of this chapter approaches the concepts of growth and development and argues that the literature of Latin American structuralism can help with a formulation of an RBE with a decolonial perspective. An RBE should not be omitted from the discussion of the international system's power hierarchies and from the discussion about sovereignty and economic dependence on peripheral countries.