Difference between revisions of "What Are Rights?"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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There is no culture where social agreement has been sufficient to create rights. Even extremely non-violent pacifist cultures such as the Mennonites are parasitic upon coercive governments to protect their rights. | There is no culture where social agreement has been sufficient to create rights. Even extremely non-violent pacifist cultures such as the Mennonites are parasitic upon coercive governments to protect their rights. | ||
| − | == Negative Duties Are Free | + | == Negative Duties Are Not Free == |
| + | Every right creates negative duties for all other people, which are often characterized as requiring only "restraint" by the others. As [[Frederic Bastiat]] liked to point out in [[What Is Seen And Unseen]], that overlooks an opportunity cost (for that "restraint"): those other people could benefit from ignoring the duty created by a right. Plenty of people have starved because of the opportunity cost of respecting property rights in land that they could have farmed themselves. | ||
== Compound Rights == | == Compound Rights == | ||
== Positive And Negative Rights? == | == Positive And Negative Rights? == | ||
