Current impasse in language of rights - Questions of context

The present problem in the articulation of rights discourse may in part be due to a neglected aspect of 'the cultural turn', namely, the new-found centrality of specifically cultural forms of property. That is, changes in the forms of property or its composition will impose strains on the discourse of rights. For, the predicament of social theory today is shaped by the fact that the last decades of the 20th century have decisively demonstrated both the inadequacy as well as the indispensability of the legacy of Karl Marx.