"My rights - are that part of my power which others have not merely conceded me, but which they wish me to preserve."
"How do these others arrive at that?
First: through their prudence and fear and caution: whether in that they expect something similar from us in return; or in that they consider that a struggle with us would be perilous or to no purpose;"
Say the working class is financially and politically impoverished. Tired of the situation, they organise together in a militant labour movement and threaten to overthrow the state. The state then recognises the working class as powerful. Powerful enough to pose a threat. And because they recognise this power, they decided to implement certain labour rights. These rights are not implemented because the state is benevolent, or because it's enacting some eternal moral law. Rather, they are implementing these rights as a compromise between two competing powerful groups, in the hope that this will appease the other party.
"That is how rights originate: recognised and guaranteed degrees of power."
This way of looking at rights is more embedded in social and material reality. It helps us see how they emerge not as impartial eternal laws, as in the Liberal dogma, but as the historical outcome of struggle.
"If power-relationships undergo any material alteration, rights disappear and new ones are created -as in demonstrated in the continual disappearance and reformation of rights between nations."
"If our power is materially diminished, the feeling of those who have hitherto guaranteed our rights changes: they consider whether they can restore us to the full possession we formerly enjoyed - if htey feel unable to do so, they henceforth deny our "rights". "
If the working class ends up growing weaker, the state that previously granted it additional rights, no longer sees them as necessary and take them away. The elimination of previously won labour rights correspond to a rapid weakening of the labour movement.
