The Rights We Don’t Have

From the ever dependable Wall Street Journal.

The real issue is that Messrs. Obama and McCain are telling us Americans that our normal lives are not good enough, that pursuing our own happiness is “self-indulgence,” that building a business is “chasing after our money culture,” that working to provide a better life for our families is a “narrow concern.”

They’re wrong. Every human life counts. Your life counts. You have a right to live it as you choose, to follow your bliss. You have a right to seek satisfaction in accomplishment. And if you chase after the almighty dollar, you just might find that you are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do things that improve the lives of others.

Horseshit.

First off, I doubt McCain or Obama would consider things such as providing for a family to be “narrow concerns.” Being part of a family is a collectivist enterprise by definition. Nor do I think they would be disappointed with anyone who became a doctor, a fireman, a farmer, or a public defender, all of which are also basically collectivist roles even when a profit is earned by them.

More to the point, a “right” is a purely political construct, a category of what actions the government may not engage in against you. Within that sphere, it is a very important construct, but that is not the sphere in which either Obama or McCain are dealing. They may be speaking as politicians, but the matters they are addressing are more appropriately understood as moral, and in the moral sphere there is no such thing as a right. There is no such thing as a bureaucracy or a centralized human authority. There is no state. There is only you, everybody else, and (for some of us anyway) God, meaning there are only duties and connections and obligations. Morally speaking, you most certainly do not have a right to follow your bliss. You have the moral obligation to be decent and to work towards and sacrifice for the good of your fellow men and women. Indeed, you ought to see to it that “following your bliss” and fulfilling those obligations cohere as much as possible. As far as rights go, you merely have the political right (for the most part) to be free from governmental interference in following your bliss, however you construct it.

It is the sphere of moral obligation and connection which the candidates are addressing – our shared notions of meaning and value, what kind of things can stir us to common purpose, and they should be praised for expanding the boundaries of our current public discourse to matters that transcend politics. What they are talking about is not a matter of law. As such it is entirely valid to slam someone (Mitt Romney, in the instance of this article) for dedicating their life to the pursuit of personal profit, or to suggest that chasing after the nice suits and the big house constitutes a moral failure. No one is suggesting that individuals should face legal consequences for such a choice, so no one is suggesting the violation of a right. What is being suggested is that our culture and our values should recognize that certain choices of life direction are lesser than others.

Mr. Boaz may be stunned to realize this, but there are many people out there who would happily continue making railroads and airplanes and computers and steam engines and gourmet coffee houses even if glory and riches did not await at the end of their efforts. They would do it for the joy of work and creation, and out of trust that their society would do right by them in return. While morality directs you outward toward others, it also directs others outward towards you. Yes, if you chase after the almighty dollar, you may wind up improving the lives of others along the way. But if you simply take the more direct approach of seeking to improve the lives of others, you will find, amazingly, that you are still improving them, and by a far less crooked route involving much less collateral damage.

~ by Jeff on May 29, 2008.