424 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )
concrete protection of preexisting, inherent rights? On this issue, the divid-
ing line between positivists and liberals was (and remains) razor- sharp.
Positivists hold, on principle, that rights are the creation of law, not vice
versa. Liberals, in contrast, hold human rights to be inherent, primordial,
and inalienable rights of human beings as such. States are accordingly to be
welcomed as protectors of those rights, but not honored as creators of them.
Solidarist and So cio log i cal Approaches
Th e solidarist (or so cio log i cal) approach to international law blossomed in
the postwar period as never before— though along the lines laid down in
the nineteenth century and the interwar periods. It continued to be ani-
mated by two core beliefs. One was that law is a product of social and
economic circumstances and not a menu of timeless, abstract norms. Th e
other was that social collectivities or communities possess interests of
their own, distinct from the individual interests of their members, and
furthermore that this general collective interest takes pre ce dence over the
myriad parochial individual concerns. As before, solidarism shared cer-
tain important features with the empirical variant of positivism—
especially positivism’s disdain for excessively rationalistic approaches,
such as that of the Vienna School. Another general feature of solidarism
that was much in evidence was a decidedly optimistic outlook. Th is was
not strictly inherent in the solidarist approach as such— and later on (as
will be seen), a pessimistic version was devised. In the fi rst postwar gen-
eration, though, solidarists tended to believe that fundamental changes
could be brought about.
Solidarism continued to be, as before, a very broad church. For example, it
could take either a “top- down” or a “bottom- up” approach to international
life. Th e top- down approach was essentially an elitist viewpoint— seeing in-
ternational society as being under the control of technical experts who would
supervise and or ga nize the common people according to some scientifi c pat-
tern. Th is top- down approach was a legacy from the nineteenth century and
interwar periods, with St.- Simonism as the exemplar. Prior to World War II,
the clearest exemplar of this outlook was Lasswell, who continued his activi-
ties aft er 1945. Th e principal innovation in solidarism in the postwar period
was the development of a bottom- up—or democratic— version.