I do not like talking about “human rights.”
Why?
Because most people don’t know the difference between an economic good and a non-economic good.
That’s why…
And most people (ignorantly) think that some economic goods should not be subject to the laws of economics.
Yeah, good luck with that.
You can ration goods by price, or by government decree – that’s it.
But nobody can talk rationally about these things…
Though “human rights” may be a concept deeply embedded in the intellectual and moral history of the West, Moyn contends that the proximate cause of its emergence was the felt need, especially by the Popes Pius XI and XII, to articulate an account of the position within the social order of the individual human being that avoided the errors of the communist model, the fascist model, and the model of romantic individualism. The primary instrument employed to shape this account was the philosophical/ theological concept of personalism, as articulated primarily by Emanuel Mounier and then by Jacques Maritain, before being appropriated for papal pronouncements.
-Alan Jacobs, The Year Of Our Lord 1943 (Amazon)
