SOCIAL RIGHT

A purported right that requires that a government set up the facility to exercise the right, usually with public or tax expenditures, sometimes with intentional sacrifices by others

Examples:

· Public education

· Universal health care (Europe, Canada)

· Eldercare

· Subsidies for parents or families (Europe)

· Voting (!)

Some writers call these “affirmative rights.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed a “second bill of rights” that would have included work, adequate housing and income, medical care and education. But these would be “social rights,” not fundamental rights as now understood. They might also be construed as “collective rights” (next slide).