Thursday, January 18, 2007

Empirical Human Right to have a Job

On my way home, listening to one of my 130 Sirius stations, a world news station interviewed an “expert” who said there is an “empirical human right to have a job.” Now I only have a Bachelors degree from one of those crappy small state colleges… so could someone explain to me what that means?

I have a vague understanding of Maslow and Harlow I have gone through the thick books of Hobbs, Locke, and Rousseau and really enjoyed the American tour of de Tocqueville; but I am not really sure how employment is a “right.” Safety, food, shelter, and clean air sure - heck I’ll even list to someone argue they have to "fight for the right to party"; but I am not clear on employment part. There have been a myriad of bad workers in and out of my life, and I have a hard time believing that they have a “right” to be there no matter how bad they do.

3 comments:

  1. A neccessity, for some. A privelage, for others. But a right? No way. If you're not Paris Hilton, then you're probably struggling to pay some of your bills. So what do you do? You give up things...or you work a second job...or you get more education in order to EARN more money. You don't sit at home drinking Schlitz thinking "Man, I deserve a job"; You work to find work, then you work to keep work.

    Just my humble opinion.

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  2. a) that photo is hysterical
    b) maybe the right is the right to work, to accomplish and not necessarily a JOB per se. I do think that doing something (hunting, gathering, making the shelter) is a natural human instinct, so perhaps yes, a right.

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  3. really could care less about what you wrote, because that photo is CRACKING me up!!!

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