Today in the American political landscape it is common to hear that people have economic “Rights”. Whether the “Right” is to “cheap housing”, “a decent wage”, or “affordable healthcare” the great fallacy is to assume that such a “Right” exists in the first place. These “Rights to something” are, in actuality, political promises. They do not represent actual Rights which are distinctly moral concepts. A real Right requires no provider and cannot violate another Right. An economic “Right”, however, requires a provider and therefore it must be taken from one (by coercion) to be given to another.
Rights are inviolate moral concepts. They are moral Laws that are deemed so fundamental that they must be protected. When the American Founding Fathers sat down to craft a new government they identified three principle Rights - Life, Liberty, and Property. These three inseparable concepts are the foundation of American society. Every individual is protected from one another by securing to each these Rights. Your neighbor down the street cannot walk into your home and take your belongings – or worse, your life – and you cannot do the same to him. This is why real Rights are protections. How quickly would a society dissolve into chaos if you could claim a “Right” to your neighbor’s car, his house, or his life?
The government, however, holds an exclusive monopoly on the power to violate your Rights. Without such power there could be no taxes, no military, and ultimately no government. It is granted this power under the explicit agreement that it is to be used only to maintain those fundamental protections afforded to each individual. This was the principle dilemma that the American Founding Fathers faced. How could a government be constructed that on one hand must control the populace (to protect individual Rights) and on the other hand must control itself? Constitutionally limited federalism was their answer to this question.
Ultimately, however, a constitution is just a piece of paper. Without the moral sanction of the populace that piece of paper holds no power. Thus, for the ambitious politician, the challenge is to convince the electorate that his political agenda holds immense moral weight. If he succeeds, and his agenda is constitutionally questionable or forbidden, he will have obtained the power to circumvent the constitutional protections. This is how economic “Rights” are born.
Implicit in a free society is equal protection under the law. No society can remain free if its government increasingly treats some citizens differently than others. But what better way for an ambitious politician to get elected than to take from a few to give to the many? And furthermore, what better way to convince the many that such an action is acceptable than to convince them that they have a “Right” to it? Quite obviously the end result is tyranny by the majority – a society who’s guiding principle is “conform or be silenced”.
That is why economic “Rights” are not Rights at all. They are the worst form of Robin-Hood-ism, in which some citizens are punished simply because they “have more” than others. Whether what they “have more” of is medical knowledge or money it does not change the fact that neither would exist without someone from whom to take it.
Perhaps the best illustration of the fallacy of economic “Rights” is with a simple example. How valid would a “Right to affordable healthcare” be if all the doctors decided to quit? If it truly is a “Right”, then the government must force some to be doctors. It does not take a political scholar to see this for what it is – slavery. As long as we continue to confer economic “Rights” in our society, we will continue to slip further toward a state where some are made to serve others. And that, quite simply, is why there are no economic “Rights”.
