&gt; Property rights are the prototypical example of a negative right<p>That property rights -- which are the state-protected privilege to exercise exclusive control of some abstract or concrete thing and restrict others freedom of action with regard to that abstract or concrete thing -- are often cast as a negative right is a perfect illustration of the fact that the distinction between &quot;positive&quot; and &quot;negative&quot; rights is far less fundamental than many people try to portray it, and is in many cases purely an artifact of the language chosen in a particular description of the right.<p>&gt; If you don&#x27;t have enough to eat, it&#x27;s because society didn&#x27;t provide a way for you to feed yourself; it&#x27;s not that specific person&#x27;s fault because they didn&#x27;t hand over their sandwich.<p>Conversely, if I have a right to acquire the necessities of survival, I can identify a specific violator: whoever it is that actively prevented me from acquiring the existing thing that was necessary.<p>The positive&#x2F;negative right distinction, even recast as a &quot;specific identifiable violator&quot; distinction, isn&#x27;t really all that useful: you still have to define <i>which</i> rights exist (even if you&#x27;ve decided which <i>classes</i> of descriptions of rights are acceptable, whether its &quot;only negative&quot; or &quot;only those with specific identifiable violators&quot;), and you still have to deal with the fact whichever rights you decide should exist are likely going to conflict.<p>&gt; This seems to be the main point of disagreement between us. You seem to be saying that if someone doesn&#x27;t have enough to eat, then it is everyone else&#x27;s fault individually. My point of view is that it&#x27;s possible for someone to go hungry without it being anyone&#x27;s fault in particular; it&#x27;s just the result of a bad system.<p>Unless there doesn&#x27;t <i>exist</i> enough food to eat, the only reason somebody doesn&#x27;t have enough to eat is because someone else -- either individually or collectively -- has actively taken steps that deny that person access to the food that exists.