http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=6714
Holy See: Children, poor in developing world have right to medicine
June 22, 2010
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Speaking at a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the Office of the United Nations and Specialized Institutions in Geneva, lamented “the lack of access to affordable medicines and diagnostic tools that can be administered and utilized in low-income, low-technology settings.”
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With all due deference to the Powers that be in the Church, I (again) accuse them of fuzzy thinking.
Where ever there is a “right” to some thing by some one, then there must be a corresponding “duty” for some one else to provide it.
Am I wrong about this?
That’s why John Locke’s formation of the concept of “negative rights” is so essential to human understanding. Your “rights” are defined by mutual agreement and a sense of fair play. It’s a survival mechanism. Members of the same species don’t kill each other (usually) but cooperate so that both individuals thrive.
(Capitalism is an amazing “cooperation” meme. That produces and allocates goods and services cooperatively. No slave overseer can drive someone as hard as they can themselves. Greed IS good! Only by satisfying the wants and needs of our fellow man do we accumulate “certificates of appreciation” <i.e., money> that we can then use to satisfy our own personal wants and needs. The “invisible hand” of the marketplace distributes “stuff” to those who have the biggest claim to it. The Fisherman, who is supplying fish to the market, gets “claim tickets” <i.e., money> that can be used for the Baker’s bread. In a complex calculus, that varies in real time, to men’s perceptions, the market determines how many fish equate to how much bread. I am stunned by Freedman’s Pencil. Maybe I should have been an economist.)
Negative rights are often some type of a right to non-interference. They impose duties on others to leave you alone! Positive rights differ substantially from negative rights. Negative rights are usually based on mutual respect and forbearance. Positive rights give you something. But do not answer the question of “who pays”? Economics rears its ugly head. The law! Everything is scarce. Otherwise we wouldn’t be “enshrining” it as a “right”. No one talks about the “right” to the air you breathe. Because it’s virtually unlimited. (Discussions about cleanliness aside.)
So the questions to the padres is: “If it’s a right, then who pays for it?”
Who? I’d rather have them say: “Isn’t it a shame that children in Africa die for the lack of a cheap drug? What should we do about it?” Rather than the Communist / Socialist / Progressive answer: Steal it! Or as they politely put it “Social Justice”. Note that the bad behavior of African politicians stealing everything in sight, and the immoral behavior of the people wontedly screwing around, create the problems that we are supposed to solve. Sorry! TANSTAFL.
Bottom line: It should be phrased as an appeal to our sense of charity; not guilt us into theft.
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A right to inexpensive medicine? Wouldn’t we all like to enjoy that right? What about the right to a just living wage? What about the cost of research for these drugs? What about the cost of drug trials to investigate the results of the drugs? See the risks of not testing drugs well –
Avandia and others.
The needs of others invite our charity of spirit and allow us to participate in community work. This includes food, shelter, clothing, teaching of spirit and skills. It does take a community.
>A right
That was my very point. “Rights” are very dangerous. Negative rights are fine; positive rights imply that some has a duty to perform. For example, right to “free speech”, means I can’t (and should not even try) to stop you from speaking your mind. That’s a negative right (as I understand Locke). The minute it becomes a “positive right”, that means I have to listen to you. And, what if I don’t feel like it. How is it that I incurred this duty? Very dangerous.
>A right to inexpensive medicine? Wouldn’t we all like to enjoy that right?
Sure, but who has the duty to provide us with that “inexpensive medicine”? Some one will have to sacrifice to pay for it. Or, we have to steal it from them somehow. Time, wealth, or even the freedom to do something else. Do we say to the researcher, you must work for free? How about the big bad corporation, it must work for free? Don’t forget about all the pensions that depend upon big bad corporation’s dividends. The truck driver, the druggist, the doctor? WHO? “We, The Taxpayers”? No, “inexpensive” medicine is the product of a capitalistic society. Capitalism enshrines the basic human emotion of greed to align everyone’s needs and get them satisfied. As memes go, capitalism has been a very good one.
>What about the right to a just living wage?
No such right can possibly exist. In addition to who’s duty is it to provide such, there is the question of what is “just” and what is “living”? I need a more stuff than you, so my “just living wage” is higher than yours. Argh!
>What about the costs … …
Oh, the Gooferment will pay and we’ll each be a serf to that “right”.
>The needs of others invite our charity
Even with all the taxes we pay, Americans are the most generous folks. (With the notable exception of some Catholic In Name Only politicians, who are free with the taxpayer’s money for charity, are remarkably stingy with their own!) The poor don’t need a Gooferment hand out, that’s implicitly designed to keep them on the plantation; they need true Christian charity that is designed to help them achieve self sufficiency.
(That’s why I like “Homefront NJ”; they measure their effectiveness by how many people they help, how quickly, and how permanent that change is. It’s about “intelligent help”. The Gooferment can’t do that. And, man, can that lady in charge squeeze a nickle into seven cents. )