Against whom are they good? Who has the corresponding obligation to
satisfy these rights? There can be no rights against Nature, except to
get out of her whatever we can, which is only the fact of the struggle
for existence stated over again. The common assertion is, that the
rights are good against society; that is, that society is bound to
obtain and secure them for the persons interested. Society, however, is
only the persons interested plus some other persons; and as the persons
interested have by the hypothesis failed to win the rights, we come to
this, that natural rights are the claims which certain persons have by
prerogative against some other persons. Such is the actual
interpretation in practice of natural rights--claims which some people
have by prerogative on other people.

This theory is a very far-reaching one, and of course it is adequate to
furnish a foundation for a whole social philosophy. In its widest
extension it comes to mean that if any man finds himself uncomfortable
in this world, it must be somebody else's fault, and that somebody is
bound to come and make him comfortable. Now, the people who are most
uncomfortable in this world (for if we should tell all our troubles it
would not be found to be a very comfortable world for anybody) are
those who have neglected their duties, and consequently have failed to
get their rights. The people who can be called upon to serve the
uncomfortable must be those who have done their duty, as the world
goes, tolerably well. Consequently the doctrine which we are discussing
turns out to be in practice only a scheme for making injustice prevail
in human society by reversing the distribution of rewards and
punishments between those who have done their duty and those who have
not.

We are constantly preached at by our public teachers, as if respectable
people were to blame because some people are not respectable--as if the
man who has done his duty in his own sphere was responsible in some way
for another man who has not done his duty in his sphere. There are
relations of employer and employe which need to be regulated by
compromise and treaty. There are sanitary precautions which need to be
taken in factories and houses. There are precautions against fire which
are necessary. There is care needed that children be not employed too
young, and that they have an education. There is care needed that
banks, insurance companies, and railroads be well managed, and that