Social Justice and Its Critics

Matt Zwolinski

Matt Zwolinski is Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego and director of USD’s Center for Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy. He is the editor of Arguing About Political Philosophy and, with Benjamin Ferguson, The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism and Exploitation: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (both in progress). He is currently writing a book on the history of libertarian thought with John Tomasi, and a book on the idea of a Universal Basic Income with Miranda Perry Fleischer.

For many, the concept of social justice means equalizing wealth or opportunities for people. Many classical liberals and libertarians reject the idea of government-​directed social justice. Some reject it because they think it is impractical or even immoral. Others reject it because they believe the idea is conceptually confused. Prof. Matt Zwolinski explains that the primary problem in the social justice concept is that free societies lack a central distributor to ensure wealth, jobs, opportunities, resources, or other goods are distributed “equally” or “fairly.” Libertarians and classical liberals find that the only meaningful concept of social justice is one focused on the legal and economic rules of societies. Many think this focus is incompatible with the political left’s concept of social justice.

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