Comment by next_xibalba

Human rights don't depend on the compulsory labor of others. They are inherent. Housing doesn't qualify.

"torture the non-productive until the conform or perform" is possibly the most inflammatory framing of "you should not make other people pay for your housing" I've seen.

Don't you see the huge contradiction here?

Housing doesn't just spring up on our streets by Jesus' will, so by making people responsible for providing housing for other people, you're literally calling for "torture until they conform and perform".

> housing as a human right

Why not just shelter?

Why should housing be a human right? Human rights came from seeing all people as made in the image of God, but since God is out of fashion, what justification is there? And even if you argue "image of God", human rights have hithertofore been about human interactions, not possessions or use of things. On the latter, Paul instructs thieves to stop stealing and work, so that they have something to give to the poor--it's not clear to me that a Christian position would necessarily consider housing or income to be a right of existence. [1]

If housing is a human right, then I think you need some human responsibilities, too. Like giving back to society in some way, e.g. Paul. Rights of interaction go both ways, but right to housing/basic income only go one way and that is not workable. Communism tried right to work / right to housing, and it never worked. You could say, well, the probably was command economy, but how would you guarantee work/housing without a command economy? As it is, society informs you how it values what your giving in the form of money, which you then use to buy housing. It isn't perfect, either, but it seems to work better.

But going back to human rights being derived from all people being made in God's image, the Christian view is that it is each individual's responsibility to care for the poor. Making no-poverty a human right turns it into society's responsibility, and I'm not convinced that is workable. Society doesn't exist; society is the interactions of individuals, and if you don't transform the individuals to each care for each other, it will be impossible for society to. Marxism makes the claim that society is the problem, but so far no workable solutions have emerged on how society can solve the problem. (To be fair, Christianity did not solve the problem, either, although the early church sure tried, especially with Basil et al after Constantine increased their resources)

[1] As a possible counterpoint, St. Basil said that everything you earn over subsistence belongs to the poor, but that seems a unworkable unless you, like him, are part of a rich monastic/ecclesiatical community that provides for you in exchange for individual poverty.