An easy reply to these same people is to ask if they think they have a right to wood, brick, concrete, sewer pipes, electrical wire, all the other materials that go into making a livable house, and, on top of that, if they think they're freely entitled to the labor required to construct a house out of these properties.
Whether or not housing should be a right, rights that are expensive to provide but are nonetheless provided anyway are nothing new.
People had natural rights long before the concepts of infrastructure, investment, or labor were ever conceived.
> Whether or not housing should be a right, rights that are expensive to provide but are nonetheless provided anyway are nothing new.
My point wasn't about expense. It was about a perceived entitlement to resources and help outside oneself. Housing in itself is not a right as it depends on resources and labor that don't belong to you. Such resources and labor are not rights.
There’s no right to property, speech, or even life itself without institutions like the police, military, and courts. There’s no right to vote without a massive election bureaucracy. There’s no right to education without a school system.
Why are we given rights like the ones I mentioned, but not housing or healthcare or basic income? It’s simply because the we haven’t collectively decided that the state should provide them. But it could. There’s no fundamental difference between providing housing and providing police protection, roads, schools, parks, and elections.
Police protection exists because the state has a monopoly on violence. Even if the police were never present however, as in the case of very remote areas with small populations, one always has a right to self-defense.
Roads and schools are not rights. They're paid for by other people's money and built by the labor of others. Parks are pieces of land the government has almost always wrongfully taken by way of eminent domain.
Elections are a complicated case. Individuals have a right to vote, but state legislatures have wide berth to set the terms of voting within their respective jurisdictions. While I would say there is a right to vote, there isn't a right to an election on terms or rules one finds favorable for one's self.
A right to vote is predicated on freedom of association among a nation's individual citizens. A person determines for himself whether he will or will not vote. It's not for society's sake that a vote is cast.
And you absolutely would lose your right to safety without police or some other form of protection. The ‘right’ might exist in your own mind, but it won’t do anything to prevent someone else who doesn’t share that belief from killing you and taking all your stuff. Rights are only meaningful with power behind then.
Semantics matter. If we can't even agree on the meaning of our terms, then we're talking past each other. Political beliefs aren't necessary to define rights.
And I'm well aware of claimed "meaning" of rights. However, as I stated earlier, such a meaning is contradictory. If a provision must be received from others, then it's not a right. It is a privilege. What the state gives, it is able to take away. Housing that is provided, subsidized, or constructed by the state isn't a right as at any point in time as the state can withhold payments to, modify, take, or demolish such housing.
> And you absolutely would lose your right to safety without police or some other form of protection.
People defended themselves long before there were professional policeman. Additionally, police officers can steal from, maim, and kill people just the same. The badge doesn't inhibit them from choosing to violate the rights of individuals. I don't see how that disproves my point. Safety is product of exercising the right to defend or remove oneself from a dangerous situation. I don't need to seek permission or pay someone protection money to secure my safety.
> The ‘right’ might exist in your own mind, but it won’t do anything to prevent someone else who doesn’t share that belief from killing you and taking all your stuff. Rights are only meaningful with power behind then.
Nothing prevents the state from killing people and stealing their stuff too. Governments have done that before, and many still do it today. Every government is composed of people who are little better in a moral sense than the average individual.
However, If you truly think that power is what makes rights meaningful, then you contradict your earlier statement about housing being a right, even in the popular sense of the term. If power makes right, then no rights exist, as people are no different from resources. Resources don't have rights and the state has no obligation to resources.
> then there needs to be a change
No there doesn't
> Having all the low paying workers commute 2 hours to work every day to make frappes and burgers for the rich locals is not a viable option.
Viable is in the mind of the beholder. Viable solutions include
- low income workers moving to more affordable areas, leaving the wealthy to make frappes and burgers with their Kurigs and air fryers
- low income workers continuing to commute feeling it is still the best option for them considering all factors
- wages raise in high-income areas to compensate baristas and chefs, allowing them to move closer to city centers.
All of these are 'viable' and none of them make housing a right or necessity.
I've been told that "housing is a right" which, if conceded, still runs into your point - housing may be a right, housing in the most expensive and populated areas in the US is not a right and there's no way to make it one.