Basics on Social Democracy Negative liberties and rights protect the individual against the encroachment of society. They are against the restriction of freedom. They include, e.g., freedom from violence, freedom of speech, and the right to private property. Positive liberties and rights enable individuals to exercise their civil rights and liberties. They request to support actively the freedom of the individual. They include, e.g. education for every one or financial support of underprivileged. “The tension between market economy and democracy, and the tension between global businesses and national politics require intervention.” Box 1: Positive and negative rights and liberties While the recognition and implementation of positive liberties and rights can help to reduce the problematic tension between the automatic inequality of a market economy and democracy's principle of equality, other factors of market capitalism also jeopardize democracy. The worldwide process of industrialization has produced some gigantic companies. Due to the economic importance of these global players, governments have to cooperate with them. Such cooperation regularly leads to cases and structures of non-democratic political decision making. For example, questions on natural resources or financial strategies are often strongly influenced by global companies, while the national democratic participation is overruled. Both, the tension between market economy and democracy, and the tension between global businesses and national politics require intervention. As democracy and market economy are mutually dependent, this tension cannot be abolished but only shaped. The questions,“What are the limits of inequality in a society?”, and“How to restrict business influence on politics?” are answered in different ways by all political ideologies and parties. While theories of liberalism mainly concentrate on negative rights and liberties and tend to be against restrictions of the economy, theorists of social democracy believe in a balance between negative and positive rights and liberties. In all democratic countries the relationship between market and democracy has been subject to constant debates, which resulted in laws and regulations.(Besides existing laws, political decisions regularly redefine or adjust this relationship.) These laws are made to ensure various fundamental rights and freedoms of the country's citizens. The most prominent wording of a law is the International Bill of Human Rights, consisting of the two international UN covenants on fundamental rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each covenant ('International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' and 'International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights') has been ratified by more than 160 countries; though the realization is sometimes in disarray, they are valid for the citizens of all ratifying states. However, most basic laws of democratic countries contain similar paragraphs as the fundamental rights, though they are often less extensive or skip some parts. For Thomas Meyer, the UN covenants are the best way to translate the core values of 16