If Healthcare Is a Right, Why Not Food and Housing?
The rights we have today are the consequence of historical chance, rather than reflecting the things most important to us
Rights are a divisive issue anywhere you go, and every country in the world seems to have a different opinion on what the basic ones should be.
In many countries in Africa and the Middle East, groups such as women, religious minorities, and members of the LGBT community face legal discrimination; in the social democracies of Scandinavia, free university education is seen as something the state has a duty to provide.
But even within the small sphere of the world’s most developed countries, attitudes differ significantly on what governments are expected to provide for their citizens. Switzerland, by many measures the world’s wealthiest and most peaceful country, has no minimum wage; England, owner of a National Health Service that is the envy of many Americans, also has higher average college tuition fees than the US.
Philosophers and economists often talk about a distinction between “rights” and “entitlements”. Conservative writer and philosopher Dr Steven Yates gives the following description:
“Many people today speak of rights. We hear of rights not just…
