In Asia as elsewhere, it is often argued that systematic infringements of internationally recognized human rights are necessary, and thus justifiable or even desirable, to achieve rapid economic development. Two particular rights-development trade-offs are commonly advanced. What I have called the liberty trade-off holds rhat civil and political rights introduce so many inefficiencies in government that they must be systematically infringed by a state seeking rapid economic development. What we can call the equity trade-off sacrifices economic and social, not civil and political, rights. The argument is that immediate satisfaction of basic needs for all or the achievement of a relatively egalitarian income distribution excessively retards the pace and progress of development. Elsewhere, I have argued at length against such blanket trade-offs.32 Here I have space only to raise questions about their plausibility and relevance to cross-cultural discussions of human rights.33
We can begin by noting that there is nothing distinctively Asian to such arguments. The liberty trade-off has been a mainstay of developmental dictatorships of all stripes. The equity trade-off, a staple of many capitalist development strategies, is part of the new orthodoxy preached (and imposed) by the International Monetary Fund and other (Western-dominated) international financial institutions. Rather than rely on culturally relative Asian values, these trade-offs appeal to a universal developmental imperative that overrides both culture and human rights.