Imagine how freeing it would be to be stranded on a remote island all by your lonesome. You wouldn’t have any bills, social media accounts, or annoying neighbors. You also don’t have much of anything else, except for the basic rights that are yours just for existing. They are even spelled out in the Declaration on Independence. Here is a quick review:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

So, alone on the island do we have the right to life? Check. Liberty? Check. The right to pursue happiness? Check. I think we have them covered.

Moving on, the first things you probably need are water, food, and shelter. Those are things you need to continue existing. Entertainment, a nice car, and Netflix are still a ways off. So, in this current imagined state that you are in, do you have a right to anything other than what was already spelled out?  The argument can be made that you do, if you can provide it yourself. Just don’t forget about the whole water and food thing.

But you aren’t going to get what we think of as healthcare that is provided by trained personnel and up to a certain standard. Fine, let’s introduce another person to the island. Now that there are two people on the island you can divide the labor. You can do food and water, and the other body can do the healthcare thing.  Here is where we could run into problems. What if the other person doesn’t want to do healthcare?  They would rather dance along the beach picking up shells. In a society where healthcare is a right, you could simply explain to the obviously stubborn person that because of a “social contract” they have to provide it.

If they are still not up to fulfilling the societal obligations, we now have a major problem in our little society of two. Do they not have a right to gather shells? Not to fret, there are still options. If you could do enough food and water for the both of you (and some of those happy shells), then you may be able to entice the other person into doing healthcare. That would be what we call the free market. If that still doesn’t work though, you need to look at other options.

This is where everything has the chance to break down. You could choose the free market way, in which you would increase the enticement of the healthcare field until the other person decides that the reward makes it worthwhile.  Or maybe someone from the mainland hears about the offer and comes to your island to cash in. Another option is to keep this little economy closed and force the shell lover to provide you your right.

If force is chosen, a couple of things should be recognized. You just took away their right to pursue happiness, and the new healthcare service needs to be fed and watered if the new mandated labor train is to keep moving. I think we have a couple of names for this, servitude and slavery come to mind.

If you argue that this island isn’t realistic in a world filled with people with different interests. Some people are always going to want to be doctors because they have huge houses and drive lambos. Maybe not. What if a taxi driver actually makes more than a doctor? Why not just drive a taxi instead of going through all of that schooling. The video at the link above is a real world example of what actually happens in Cuba. That tiny country actually makes a huge profit by selling their doctors into slavery.

That is just a small example of what happens when a government starts bestowing rights that don’t really exist onto the masses. It may sound like a good deal for you, until it happens to the industry you work in. Your true rights, the ones that exist alone on an island, or in a complex society, only extend until they start infringing on those same rights of others.