All Costs Have a Right

To solve problems of inequality and insecurity, we need to advance universal human economic rights, not just increase discretionary targeted redistributive spending. This is the opposite of the conventional law and economic wisdom. <br> Orthodox law and economics tells us: <i>all rights have a cost</i>. Law can allocate economic gain, but not generate it. Any new economic rights aimed at alleviating socioeconomic disadvantages will thus require an inevitable tradeoff in public or private spending—that new right must come at the expense of some other economic benefit. Under this logic, a new legal right to affordable health care would mean fewer resources are available for education or jobs. In addition, this theory warns that an entitlement to economic support would replace market discipline with incentives for waste and abuse, further draining available resources. <br> What orthodox law and economics does not tell us: <i>all costs have a right</i>. That is, any costs associated with new economic rights arise not from essential economics, but from contingent legal and political arrangements. Particular legal and political regimes produce, organize, and limit access to human needs like education or health care. Law itself shapes the market forces that appear to be disrupted when law re-allocates rights to advance general human needs.