The libertarian view of human rights is basically “don’t hit people and don’t take their stuff.”
Sort of a simplified version of the non-aggression principle about not initiating force against others.
This is sometimes called “negative liberty.” The freedom to be left alone.
Our friends on the left, by contrast, have the opposite perspective. They believe in so-called “positive liberty,” which means an entitlement to various handouts.
And they don’t care that those goodies can only be financed by using government coercion (via taxes, regulations, mandates, etc).
But today’s column is not going to involve a serious discussion of rights. Instead, I want to add to my satirical series on “great moments in human rights.”
The latest example comes from Spain, where you have the right to declare a different gender to get more benefits from the government.
Spain’s Left-wing government introduced a self-ID law in 2022 that made it simple to transition formally, while at the same time boosting benefits for women in the military and security forces. Since the change was introduced, 41 men have become women in the Spanish territory of Ceuta in North Africa. Only four of that number have changed their names. …Roberto Perdigones, an army corporal who registered as female in the last year, now earns more money and lives in superior accommodation. “On the outside I feel like a heterosexual man, but on the inside I am a lesbian…” “For changing my gender, I have been told that my pension has gone up because women get more to compensate for inequality. I also get 15 per cent more salary for being a mother,” he said. …Under Spain’s transgender law, anyone can switch the gender entered on their ID card and passport by formally requesting the change, without any additional requirements… Sources told El Español that officers in the Civil Guard, the National Police and the Local Police in Ceuta were also changing their sexes for benefits.
Like any good libertarian, I support the right of adults to change their names, to dress how they want, and/or to surgically alter their genitalia.
Making any of those choices simply to get more goodies from the government, however, seems a bit strange.
But, as I’ve written before, incentives matter. For better or worse.
P.S. Here are some other bizarre moments in human rights.
- In Canada, there’s now a right to be an employed alcoholic.
- Across Europe, a satellite dish is now a human right.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development asserts there is a right to “emotional support animals” in college dorms.
- In Finland, broadband access is a basic right.
- In France, it is against the law to say your husband is under-endowed or that your wife is fat.
- There’s now an entitlement for free soccer broadcasts in Europe.
- In Italy, you have the right to…um…your testicles.
- Both the United Nations and the Obama Administration think there’s a right to taxpayer-financed birth control.
- In the United States, the elderly have the right to taxpayer-financed sex-change operations.
- There’s even a right to a “special accommodation” if you’re a pee-shy worker in America.
- In Scotland, there’s now a human right to taxpayer-financed feminine protection products.
Phil, [REPEAT]
Actually, I do prefer to believe rights are God-given. I prefer believing God exists, and I prefer believing every human being possesses equal rights, even people unfortunate enough to live in countries that don’t recognize rights. However, I understand this is a preference. I cannot prove the existence of such rights, just as you can’t prove they don’t exist. Much as we cannot prove or disprove the existence of God.
I was willing to concede rights are a social construct for the purpose of this discussion because it doesn’t really matter. Even if rights are purely a social construct, the social construct itself has given rights primacy! I’m referring only to the US. Both laws and broad public opinion say the little baby and the island hermit possess inalienable rights. In contrast, neither laws nor public opinion say babies and hermits have obligations of any consequence. You don’t like the baby and hermit examples because they clearly illustrate how rights are more inherent and universal than obligations. However, the same point holds roughly true for all adults. Both laws and broad public opinion unambiguously support the idea that every adult possesses inalienable rights. In contrast, laws and public opinion show much less support for the idea that every adult is obligated to provide other people with free goods and services. So, even if rights are a social construct, the very same social construct has made rights more important and universal than obligations.
Now, I don’t dispute that many lefties believe obligations are more important than individual rights. Many lefties would love to eliminate the concept of God-given or natural rights. after all, individual rights obstruct the goal of transforming America into a socialist paradise. Lefties gotta make obligations seem more important than rights to justify making govt bigger. Well, the US has moved toward that social construct, but we haven’t adopted it yet.
You seem to have this absurd notion that if rights are limited, they’re not really rights, or that limitations make rights unimportant. Nonsense. Rights have always been both limited and important. Even if rights are God-given, human beings have always debated whether sensible constraints should exist.
Why are you accusing me of thinking “I get to draw the line” on taxes? The only thing I can think of is once upon a time I said I thought taxes shouldn’t take more than 50% of a person’s income. Is that what you mean? But even then, of course that’s an opinion, and of course opinions are not sacrosanct. Why are you saying these things??
The idea that each person has property rights in the fruits of his labor is a principle. It’s quite natural that the person who earned the income should be able to keep most of it. This principle is useful and universal. But it doesn’t say taxes should be zero. It doesn’t say exactly where the tax line should be drawn. It says people have property rights in their incomes, and those rights should be respected, not ignored.
Phil,
Actually, I do prefer to believe rights are God-given. I prefer believing God exists, and I prefer believing every human being possesses equal rights, even people unfortunate enough to live in countries that don’t recognize rights. However, I understand this is a preference. I cannot prove the existence of such rights, just as you can’t prove they don’t exist. Much as we cannot prove or disprove the existence of God.
I was willing to concede rights are a social construct for the purpose of this discussion because it doesn’t really matter. Even if rights are purely a social construct, the social construct itself has given rights primacy! I’m referring only to the US. Both laws and broad public opinion say the little baby and the island hermit possess inalienable rights. In contrast, neither laws nor public opinion say babies and hermits have obligations of any consequence. You don’t like the baby and hermit examples because they clearly illustrate how rights are more inherent and universal than obligations. However, the same point holds roughly true for all adults. Both laws and broad public opinion unambiguously support the idea that every adult possesses inalienable rights. In contrast, laws and public opinion show much less support for the idea that every adult is obligated to provide other people with free goods and services. So, even if rights are a social construct, the very same social construct has made rights more important and universal than obligations.
Now, I don’t dispute that many lefties believe obligations are more important than individual rights. Many lefties would love to eliminate the concept of God-given or natural rights. after all, individual rights obstruct the goal of transforming America into a socialist paradise. Lefties gotta make obligations seem more important than rights to justify making govt bigger. Well, the US has moved toward that social construct, but we haven’t adopted it yet.
You seem to have this absurd notion that if rights are limited, they’re not really rights, or that limitations make rights unimportant. Nonsense. Rights have always been both limited and important. Even if rights are God-given, human beings have always debated whether sensible constraints should exist.
Why are you accusing me of thinking “I get to draw the line” on taxes? The only thing I can think of is once upon a time I said I thought taxes shouldn’t take more than 50% of a person’s income. Is that what you mean? But even then, of course that’s an opinion, and of course opinions are not sacrosanct. Why are you saying these things??
The idea that each person has property rights in the fruits of his labor is a principle. It’s quite natural that the person who earned the income should be able to keep most of it. This principle is useful and universal. But it doesn’t say taxes should be zero. It doesn’t say exactly where the tax line should be drawn. It says people have property rights in their incomes, and those rights should be respected, not ignored.
John, as I’m sure you guessed, the response of March 13 at 10:19 p.m. was mine. I have no idea why it said “anonymous” or what it will say this time.
Anyway, happy pi day!
Phil
Ah, John, “not very convincing” doesn’t say much. Just give me your arguments. It seems to me that when our back-and-forths began a couple years ago (is it really possible?), the single biggest bone of contention, as I seem to recall, is whether or not rights were somehow “innate.” I am glad to see that you are at least willing to concede that they are actually social constructs.
I’m not an expert (which is why I like to turn to people like David Hume, widely regarded as the greatest philosopher in the English language). But I can take some stabs as to what kinds of things would be innate (or natural) rights. Hunger and the need to assuage it would be one. Now there is something natural. The nurturing instinct would be another. Ditto for lust. Likewise for our evolution as social animals. None of these needed a government to decree and then enforce. But property rights, and other rights widely respected in the west, are not universal, much less innate. You don’t have a right to free speech because you are a human being, but because you happened to grow up in a place where that right was held to be precious and worth defending. But even a right as precious as free speech is bound by many limitations. You have an OBLIGATION not to slander or libel. You have an OBLIGATION not to plagiarize. You have an OBLIGATION not to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater. You have an OBLIGATION to tell the truth when sitting in the witness box in a courtroom. Contrary to what you say, there is no primacy of rights. Try telling the judge you were engaged in free speech when you perjured yourself. See where that lands you.
Speaking of obligations, you know what they say are the two things everyone must do: die and pay taxes. You seem willing to levy taxes for some things (you have mentioned courts and the military – and maybe some others I don’t remember). I suspect, although I don’t know, that you would also be okay with taxing for the purposes of building infrastructure. But at some point you draw a line. Why you? Why do you get to draw the line? You can, of course, have an opinion as to where the line should be drawn, but your opinion is not nearly so sacrosanct as you seem to want it to be. If society can build bridges with taxes, why can’t society build young minds with taxes for schools? These lines – delineating our rights – are not drawn in the stars. They are not in our DNA. They are the emerging consensus that grows out of social animals making decisions together. Not all societies will draw lines in the same place. Not all will see rights in the same way. That’s okay. Because rights are not universal and they are voluntary.
Phil,
Lots of words, not very convincing. Of course property rights also depend on rule of law. So what? Of course human beings tend to enact zoning restrictions. So what? I’ll even give you rights are a social construct. None of this negates the primacy of rights.
Yes, hunter-gatherers mostly didn’t practice ownership of land. Not because private property rights aren’t natural or God-given, but because land ownership was meaningless to them! Akin to deciding who owns the sky. Why? Because they were very few in number relative to the quantity of land and they were nomadic. But property is more than land, and there’s good reason to believe hunter-gatherers DID practice private property ownership for objects that did matter to them. Because private property is a very natural concept.
As for rights vs obligations, consider another example. We all have a right to free speech. We also have some obligation to not speak overly rudely to others. That obligation is real, and it makes sense, but the right to free speech is more fundamental, more important. The right to free speech is key to making progress in all areas of knowledge. If govt forbids scientists from engaging in free speech, that’s extremely likely to harm scientific progress. But scientific progress can and does still occur when people speak rudely to each other.
Obligations are voluntary, personal and less important. Rights are involuntary, universal, and more important.
sdu754,
No, you didn’t give me “the” answer. And do you realize what you wrote: “Setting up a needed justice system is different than… trying to legislate morality.” What do you think justice systems do? And, contrary to what you say, they are not so removed from wealth distribution. They in fact require wealth distribution since they are paid for by taxes.
You dodged all my philosophical points (last two paragraphs). I don’t want to get into a lot of repetition here, so if you’re interested, please see my March 11 at 6:37 email to John.
Hi John
Paul Jurczak writes,
“Property ownership is best understood not as the ownership of things but as a set of rights to the use of things. A person who owns a house has rights to certain uses of the house but not to others. For houses in zoned communities (most houses) the ownership rights are limited. I cannot tear down my house and put up a movie theater without changing the zoning of the physical property upon which the house is situated. The right to change zoning is a collective right held by the community in which the house is located. We can say that the city in which a house is located has an ownership right over the proper use of that house. The city also has an ownership right to extract certain taxes from the owner.”
The Nature of Property – Introduction to Philosophy (ucf.edu)
And he didn’t even mention the right of the state to take the property from you under the right of eminent domain. So it’s not really clear here that “rights” trump “obligations.”
More important is the question of the origin of rights (property rights as well as others). Are they natural, some sort of birthright. I don’t think so. As social animals we created rights. And we established structures by which to enforce them. But we also created obligations and the structures by which to enforce them.
Yes, babies have more rights than obligations. So, too, for that matter do the dying. But these are not the people we are talking about. We are talking about adults. And there the balance becomes much more obvious. In any event, the number of rights and obligations does not tell us which is preeminent in a given situation. Nor does the example of the baby tell us anything about the origins of rights. Nothing about the baby situation rules out the idea that rights are a social construct.
Again, from Jurczak:
“David Hume (1711-1776) claims—much as did Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) —that there is no natural right to property, rather, all property is grounded in the laws of a just society. Hume says,
“A man’s property is some object related to him. This relation is not natural, but moral, and founded on justice. Tis very preposterous, therefore, to imagine, that we can have any idea of property, without fully comprehending the nature of justice, and shewing its origin in the artifice and contrivance of man. The origin of justice explains that of property.[7]
“Hume brings us back to the idea that the rules that establish property ownership are constructed by a society in order achieve some positive goal(s). If a group of people are to agree that some person actually does have property rights in some object, the conditions whereby that right is properly held must be known and agreed to by that group. Rather than tracing ownership back to some mysterious ‘state of nature,’
“Hume claims that rules of justice must already exist prior to any claim of property ownership. Remember that if we think of property as an ‘enforceable claim’ (and most contemporary philosophy of property does) then there must be a group of people (say police and the courts) that exist in order to enforce one’s claims to property.”
As for any need to even have property rights for a society to succeed (your claim that property rights must come first for any prosperity to exist), we turn to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
“Any society with an interest in avoiding conflict needs such a system of rules. Their importance can hardly be overestimated, for without them cooperation, production, and exchange are virtually impossible, or possible only in the fearful and truncated forms we see in ‘black markets.’ This necessity is sometimes cited as an argument in favor of private property (Benn and Peters 1959, p. 155). In fact, all it establishes is that there ought to be property rules of some kind: private property rules are one variety. Some human societies have existed for millennia, satisfying the needs and wants of all their members, without private property or anything like it in land or the other major resources of economic life. So the first step in sound argumentation about property is distinguishing those arguments which support the existence of property in general from arguments which support the existence of a system of a specific kind (Waldron 1988).’
You have a tendency to see ownership as either private or collective (black or white), but maybe it’s more complex than that. Again, the SEP:
“Plainly private property and collective control are not all-or-nothing alternatives. In every modern society, some resources are governed by common property rules (e.g., streets and parks), some are governed by collective property rules (e.g., military bases and artillery pieces), and some are governed by private property rules (toothbrushes and bicycles). Also, there are variations in the degree of freedom that a private owner has over the resources assigned to him. Obviously, an owner’s freedom is limited by background rules of conduct: I may not use my gun to kill another person. These are not strictly property rules. More to the point are things like zoning restrictions, which amount in effect to the imposition of a collective decision about certain aspects of the use of a given resource. The owner of a building in an historic district may be told, for example, that she can use it as a shop, a home, or a hotel but she may not knock it down and replace it with a skyscraper. In this case, we may still say that the historic building counts as private property; but if too many other areas of decision about its use were also controlled by public agencies, we would be more inclined to say that it was really subject to a collective property rule (with the ‘owner’ functioning as steward of society’s decisions).
“It is probably a mistake therefore to insist on any definition of private property that implies a proprietor has absolute control over his resource.[2] Some jurists have even argued that the terms ‘property’ and ‘ownership’ should be eliminated from the technical discourse of the law (see Grey 1980). They say that calling someone the ‘owner’ of a resource conveys no exact information about her rights in relation to that resource: a corporate owner is not the same as an individual owner; the owner of intellectual property has a different array of rights than the owner of an automobile; and even with regard to one and the same resource, the rights (and duties) of a landlord who owes nothing on his property might be quite different from those of a mortgagor.”
You’re right about Patty, but, of course, many rights that are very highly valued (freedom of speech, religion, etc.) would also mean little to her if she was murdered. As for your hermit friend, he is not part of a society, and so I would suggest he is not really germane to this discussion. Rights come into play when there is the need to adjudicate among people.
Many western societies (including the U.S.) have established that a person has a right to medical care, to an education, and to be free from hunger (to pick three examples). These, of course, have to be paid for by taxes sometimes, but so do the rights you want protected. You said so yourself. Social construct, my friend, social construct! In any event, the argument is not usually about whether certain things are “rights” or not (although those arguments still exist and new “rights” are always capable of being constructed – the right to gay marriage, for example), but rather about how much society wants to dish out to give people certain things. Swedes are inclined to dish out more. Many Swedes like it that way. Some don’t and maybe move here. I welcome them here, and I wish farewell to those who choose to leave the U.S. because they find the culture here too individualistic for their tastes. Different strokes for different folks.
phkershner, I gave the answer. You don’t have the right to harm someone else. If your actions are bringing in disease, either directly (such as a pig farm in the suburbs) or indirectly (such as a lawn that is so unkept that it brings in vermin) then you are hurting others. As someone else noted, this is quite different than the government taking money from one person to give it to someone else to buy a nicer car. In this situation, it is the government that is causing the harm. They are hurting those that they are taking money away from. Setting up a needed justice system is different than wealth distribution or trying to legislate morality.
Phil,
How do I justify taking people’s income to pay for a court system? A court system is widely accepted as a necessary institution to protect our rights. The role of govt is to provide such institutions. Of course, taxpayers pay for it. This is all common sense and very far removed from taking people’s money to pay for poor people to have good cars.
I don’t know of anyone who says rights are “self-obvious.” Life is messy and diverse. The negative rights of classic liberalism provide useful guidelines, but that doesn’t mean every situation is crystal clear.
I agree people have obligations, but I believe rights do eclipse obligations. One is born with rights more than obligations. A baby immediately has a right to not be killed or wounded. A baby who owns property has a right to keep it (others can’t steal it). But what obligations does a baby have? Obligations depend much more on how one lives life. An adult with spouse, 8 kids, lots of friends, employees, social connections, and money has many obligations. A hermit who has none of those things and lives on an isolated island does not. Yet both of those people have the same rights, because they’re universal and foundational.
Here’s another example of how rights eclipse other values. Property rights must come first before prosperity can be created. People don’t invest their time and money inventing and building up businesses if they believe it can all be stolen or torched without consequence. And if little wealth is created, little redistribution is possible. Property rights must therefore be more important than redistribution.
Here’s another one. Does it matter to Poor Patty whether she owns a good car or a junk car if she is murdered? Obviously not. Her right to life clearly eclipses her supposed right to a good car.
Yes, there can be other examples where the primacy of individual rights are less clear. No one ever said life wasn’t messy. But individual rights are foundational.
Hi John,
Yes, slogans are meant to be simplistic, but their ramifications are also meant to be analyzed and taken apart.
I am not against constraints on government. I favored Trump’s actions to deregulate. Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation with too many constraints and need to do something about it. But sometimes we also find ourselves with too many social ills that require additional government involvement (no, not all social ills require government involvement, but some do).
You mention courts of law. Such systems are expensive. How do you justify taking people’s income to pay for them, especially taking income from people who have no need for such courts and are willing to take the risk of living without them?
As I wrote to someone else:
Who had the right to determine that freedom is the ultimate value?
We evolved as social animals. Maybe within that sociality is to be found the ultimate value. Maybe instead of thinking that I am born with rights I should think that I am born with obligations, to the group and to posterity. Within that framework we can certainly carve out rights, but they are not ultimately self-obvious. Nor do they self-evidently eclipse other values.
Good to hear from you… hope all is well with you.
People who don’t mow their lawns destroy property values. Should government do something about that? Or do those people have a right to have grass four feet tall?
People who leave trash all over their property both kill property values and spread disease. Should government step in?
Who had the right to determine that freedom is the ultimate value?
We evolved as social animals. Maybe within that sociality is to be found the ultimate value. Maybe instead of thinking that I am born with rights I should think that I am born with obligations, to the group and to posterity. Within that framework we can certainly carve out rights, but they are not ultimately self-obvious. Nor do they self-evidently eclipse other values.
Phil,
“Don’t hit people or take their stuff” is a slogan. Slogans are meant to be simplistic. “Don’t hit people or take their stuff, and pig farmers can’t violate their neighbor’s rights” is not a very catchy slogan.
I assume what you really don’t like is constraints on govt. However, “Poor people should get free cars” is a far cry from “The pig farmer’s neighbor also has rights.” Libertarianism recognizes that both pig farmer and neighbor have rights. In practice, solutions to resolve such conflicts are worked out via personal negotiations or in a court of law. None of this is comparable to “poor people should get free cars.” One, no poor person has a right to a good car. Two, taxpayers forced to pay for those cars do have a right to their incomes.
The negative rights of libertarianism (or classic liberalism) provide useful guidelines for recognizing such limits. The positive rights of progressivism are allergic to limits. That’s a problem.
I think the line “Don’t hit people and take their stuff” doesn’t really encompass all of libertarian thought. A better thought process would be: “An adult can do whatever they want so long as they aren’t hurting anyone else”. In your scenario of the pig farmer, they are hurting other people. Pigs carry disease and a pig farm in the suburbs would kill property values.
@ anonymous: I didn’t just pretend to have valid criticisms. I had a valid criticism of the simplistic “Don’t hit people and don’t take their stuff.” You even helped to make my point. You admitted that if I’m affected by waste, smell, hygiene, etc. than the government can step in. Apparently you concur with me. So physical violence and theft are not the only reasons for government intervention.
By your own logic there would also be nothing wrong with government laws to alleviate poverty for the negative and direct impact it has on others (one simple example: if a person is too poor to keep their car in good running order, that endangers my life).
@phkeeshner So you formulated a scenario, with no reasons given decided that Libertarianism does not have a solution and then declared it too simplistic? Look, if you don’t like something just say so, instead of pretending you have valid criticisms.
BTW – you have no right to live in a pig free neighbourhood. Unless you’re directly affected (waste, smells, hygiene etc) in which case there’s nothing illiberal about making laws regulating that.
Criminal behavior is thievery of various sorts. Sure, stealing but not just of stuff. Homicide is stealing a life, a future. Fraud steals more than money or stuff–it steals trust, it steals hopes and dreams of others.
To the Left, the mantra is what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, too if I want it.
“Don’t hit people and don’t take their stuff.” I think we need that libertarian school of thought to help us prevent excesses. But how is a libertarian living in the tony western Chicago suburbs going to feel about a neighbor who decides to start raising pigs in his backyard (i.e. just across the fence). Can government step in to stop that? If so, don’t we now have the camel’s nose under the tent? That’s my problem with libertarian thought. It’s too simplistic – even if appealing – and often does not have good answers to difficult problems.
Ridiculous.