Do people have a right to food and shelter?

I recently had a conversation with a Facebook friend who stated that food and shelter are more than necessities, they are rights. I posed the question, "How does one exercise their right to food and shelter?" No one answered the question, so I would like to pose it here. Most food in this country is grown by farmers and sold fresh, or processed in a factory for sale. If food is a "right," does anyone without the means to buy these products have an inherent right to take what they need without any remuneration to the farmer or the manufacturer? The same applies to shelter. How does one exercise their "right" to shelter without a means to earn it? We have a right to free speech, and a right to vote. One is exercised by speaking your mind on a subject without fear of government reprisal, and the other is exercised by voting during elections. We have the right to practice whatever religion we want or none at all. The press has the right to print or say whatever they want. Any "right" to food or shelter would have to operate differently. So are food and shelter a "right"? What would that mean in practice?

Patrick Sherrill , 29.10.2014, 09:51

Idea status: completed

Comments

MichaelGaither, 02.01.2015, 01:27

As a fun sci-fi addition to the above question, would we have a right to breathable air if we were to build and live within a "colony" on another planet or on a spacecraft? Breathable air would have to be produced, like food, shelter, healthcare, etc. so my first pass would be that breathable air in this scenario would also NOT be a right in that someone else must be required to provide it for you, assuming of course that there existed a way for you to produce or trade for breathable air. However, the fact that the absence of breathable air is a far more immediate threat to a person's existence than the absence of food might add some wrinkles to this. Would this fall under a stowaway consideration as has been discussed in other context on the podcast? Would this fall under the role of government in these scenarios, similar to protecting the boundaries of the colony or the containment vessel of the spacecraft?

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Do people have a right to food and shelter?

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