Contra the "Right to Housing"
Carey/Caplan/Brennan/Freiman
Last week, I got this email from Allan Carey, Director of Cato’s Sphere Education Initiatives:
Hi Bryan,
I’ve got a colleague who is putting together some resources for teachers on housing, specifically the question of what it means to treat housing as a human right. While he’s had no trouble finding resources arguing in favor of that position, he’s struggled to find a libertarian argument against it. Given your research and work on Build, Baby, Build, I thought I’d reach out to see if you had any recommendations or had written anything on the topic. Anything come to mind?
As a brief note, I should mention that he’s explicitly not looking for libertarian arguments for how to approach housing, but specifically the question of treating housing as a human right.
All my best,
Allan
I responded:
Other than the standard stuff from Nozick or Rand, I don’t really know of anything. But I’m cc:ing Jason Brennan and Chris Freiman, who are more likely to know.
Jason Brennan soon wrote back:
Other standard objections:
1. Why should I pay to support other rich Americans rather than genuinely poor Haitians?
2. The market provides it better. Saying X is a right, even if true, doesn’t tell us how to provide it.
3. If housing is indeed a human right, then the government is obligated to deregulate housing and zoning to make it cheaper.
Chris Freiman added:
Agreed--the standard deontological libertarian arguments against enforceable positive rights would apply here. I would also add that even libertarians who reject these arguments would likely say that we shouldn't institutionalize a right to housing in particular but, at most, institutionalize something like Friedman's negative income tax. This way people in poverty would be provided with resources to use as they see fit, which may or may not involve housing.
Best,
Chris
I concluded:
I think this email chain would make a cool short blog post. Anyone object?
As expected, no one objected. Which brings us full circle!
As with all positive rights, I deeply disagree with the idea that housing is a human right, because it means someone is obligated (perhaps even enslaved) to provide you that right.
In re declaring something a “human right”, presumably to be provided by the government, the question should always be asked: “are you prepared to use violence to take the item in question to give it to your intended recipient?“