Charles Brown wrote:
>
> Food Is, Still, Clearly Not a Human Right - answers to you all
> "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
>
> Not what I mean by a right. A right to X (I tire of repeating) means that
> you may not take X away from mer without my say so.
>
> ^^^^^^^^
>
> CB: What is a freedom ?
Charles, sometimes I really don't understand how you operate. It seems fairly simple. In a desirable social order, all members would have sufficient, and preferably equal, access to the means of subsistence and enjoyment. Just what that general phrase means would have to be worked out in practice under concrete conditions at a given time and place. Since the means of subsistence vary in kind from person to person, as well as from historical context to historical context, it is an empty claim to specify them. Within any social order other than those in which individuals (or small groups of individuals) produce their own means of subsistence (e.g., a hunting gathering society) that means _not_ the means themselves but the mechanism by means of which an individual chooses and acquires the chosen means. In a market economy that means money or food stamps. Preferably _not_, repeat NOT == the food or clothing itself (except, by way of exception, a militry unit in which one is issued uniforms and a mess ticket). Food stamps, which are tied to some products, are an instance of how undesirable "the right to food" is in contrast to the right to the means to acquire food.
You and I have some rather deep differences with Justin, some of which can be profitably discussed in the framework of this list, some which cannot. (That in itself is a large and interesting topic, but not my concern here.) But this quarrel over a "right to food" versus a "right to the means of acquiring food" seems an absolutely sterile and empty debate to me.
Carrol