So if you and I are on a desert island, and you have some money, and I have a right to a job, then you are required to offer me a job. I have a right to it, correct? But in so doing, I make you my slave, since you are obligated to employ me. So my "right" to a job violates your right to liberty.

Thus the distinction between negative and positive rights. The fundamental (natural) rights of life, liberty, and property are negative rights in that others may not violate those rights with impunity. (I have a right to defend my life with violence)

Jobs, healthcare, education, income, etc are all positive rights, in that they require someone else to act in order to fulfill my right to those things. Thus all positive rights eventually violate the natural rights of another, since when reduced to the desert island example, the other becomes my slave.

We're on a desert island and:

I have a right to education, and you're a teacher

I have a right to a kidney transplant, and you have two kidneys

I have a right to healthcare, and you're a doctor

I have a right to eat, and you have lots of food

I have a right to shelter, and you have the only hut on the island

In all of these cases, you become my slave, since you are forced to fulfill my "right" to something.

Of course, we're talking about a legal ethic here, not a moral one. If I need shelter, and you have the only hut on the island, then it would be properly moral for you to share with me, but I cannot legally compel you to do so, from a natural rights perspective.

But positive rights are not generally fulfilled by forcing people to work, but by limiting people's right to property slightly through taxation, and using the resulting revenue to pay to fulfil those rights.

This is not slavery: No one is forced to work.

I see the distinction you're making. Thanks

The issue is that you can quite easily imagine a society where everyone is guaranteed shelter, food, and water by the social structure, and money might be used primarily for luxuries. Money-as-a-right wouldn't necessarily make sense in such a society.

It exists in classical liberal societies because liberalism doesn't really have a consistent concept of positive duties, either on the individual or the societal whole. But there's definitely other forms of political thought, liberalism is just seductive because it claims to arise from the natural state of things.

I can't quite easily imagine such a society. No one can ever explain to how that gets paid for without the government taking even more money from me by force.

This functionally exists in nz, the uk, australia, where you can claim welfare benefits indefinitely as long as you demonstrate to the system that you're looking for work. (Probably a lot of other places but I don't have direct experience of those). You don't actually have to be really looking of course, you just need to satisfy the clerk at the dole office.

The fundamentals of social structure are so close to the U.S that you have to squint a bit to see the differences.

Yeah it gets abused and it's pretty hard to live on it, but the alternative (as far as a slim moral majority tends to vote) is worse.

Yes, taxes are a bit higher. It's not the end of the world.

Still got problems with homelessness, because that's a hard problem. You can live off benefits but you need to be basically functional to do it.

Watch a few episodes of the UK Who Do You Think You Are tv show and what comes across in many of these people's ancestral stories is that some people had it all (and it didn't always work out for them), women had no right to own a damn thing, and that many, many people suffered and died because there was no welfare state in Europe pre WWII. The lives of ordinary people were often awful and governed by pure chance. The welfare state is one of the greatest achievements of human-kind.

And I can't imagine ever living in a society that values a slight reduction in taxes over providing basic protections for those in need.

Most of Europe provides those kind of protections to (greatly) varying degrees, because the alternative seems too horrifying.

(and yes, "US conditions" regularly gets pulled out in many European countries as a negative example of the consequences of cutting welfare systems)

Whether it's taken by force is irrelevant as to whether such a society is possible. A right to shelter does not require a right to property, so you can't use the former as an argument for the latter.

Guaranteed by the social structure means that people have collectively agreed to guarantee this to others, and if you don't agree, you're prevented from access to the benefits of the social structure (including those guarantees for yourself). (Part of) left-libertarianism or left-anarchism, basically.

I think the parent comment is trying to say that 'basic human rights' are the ones that apply regardless of society.

The claim is that there are some rights that should be due to us because of the context we are in, and some rights that should be due to us simply because we are human.

'Right to a job' would definitely be a right based on context, especially since there are contexts where the concept of 'job' might not make any sense at all.

The question is whether right to property is of the context type or not.

No, without shelter you are homeless. If money is for some reason absolutely necessary to acquire shelter in a particular society (which I don't think it is), then it is implied by a right to shelter.

One can have money and still be homeless.