It’s a liberal framing of the separation of the individual from the state. I suppose it’s true that in bourgeois society the state is a weapon against the great majority, so in order to be less obvious they guarantee paper “freedoms,” which usually amount to freedom mostly for capital. Does it matter that everyone is supposedly equally “free to speak” when money can give you a louder voice? Does it matter that all are “free to pursue property/happiness” if wealth begets wealth and poverty, poverty?

Positive freedoms are also an illusion. They are meant to present the image that the state is bestowing something upon the individual. In actuality these freedoms are fought and died for. The state may protect against discrimination in theory, but people gave their lives asking for that right.

In socialist society there is no contradiction between the individual and society. If the government is truly of the people then why do they need to be protected from it? In this case you could see the whole of the proletarian state as a representative of positive rights. People fought for a state of the majority and now their product frees them of want and exploitation. Of course the state is the people. The interests of the individual is to work as they like for the product of their labor or to be at rest however they like. The state that has ceased to be a state (as Lenin would say) is promoted by and promotes such self interest.

To conclude, it seems “negative rights” are a liberal explanation justifying the contradiction between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the masses. “Positive rights” is a phrase that obscures struggle. Both are useless in the context of socialism.