These Days Before the Vote: Advancement of Social Justice

Whitewater, Wis. — This crisp Thursday afternoon in Wisconsin continues These Days Before the Vote, a series addressing, each day before the November election, a principle or position on which our liberal democratic tradition rests.

Now we come to a question on which libertarians are divided: should the individual liberty that we hold as a first principle include a commitment to social justice? Those who hold that it should (differing among themselves over how much it should) sometimes style themselves as bleeding-heart libertarians. At this site and elsewhere, I have used the term bleeding-heart libertarian to describe my own views.

Those views summarized: Individual rights, freedom from interference, free markets in labor and capital, limited government, property rights, a spontaneous and dynamic social order, and advancement of social justice. Each tenet is presumptively held and supported, within a liberal democratic society that recognizes all persons of as being of equal moral worth.

Of a libertarian commitment to social justice, and the identification with a certain kind of libertarianism, I am reminded of a famous explorer's memorable diary entry on arriving at last at the Mississippi:

Here we are, then, on this so renowned River . . .

See Jacques Marquette, First Voyage, in 59 The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 107–09 (Reuben Gold Thwaites ed., 1899).

At last, arrival at 'this so renowned River.' In a hopeful way, libertarians' arrival at this topic is arrival at what should be a fundamental characteristic of libertarianism: claims and actions freely made and undertaken with a view toward social justice.

This position requires extended, ongoing exploration, exposition. For today, mention of a libertarian consideration of social justice serves as though it is a first sighting, the first arrival at a river waiting to be explored another day. For a brief discussion, see Steven Horwitz, Libertarians Who Dismiss Social Justice Are Mistaken, June 10, 2020.

We confront from authoritarian populism — MAGA — thoroughgoing cruelty and deliberate, unjustified assaults on individual rights.

Attempts to deny birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children. See Exec. Order No. 14,160, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship (Jan. 20, 2025). The distortion of the Constitution's plain text for a racist aim is revealing as an assault against the rule of law and the equality of all citizens, however under the law they have become citizens.

Nationality-based travel bans and restrictions. See Here Are the 12 Countries Trump Placed Under Travel Bans, and the 7 Newly Under Travel Restrictions, Associated Press, June 5, 2025. These travel bans and restrictions are both ethnic bans and religious bans.

Promoting white South African refugees while most other refugee admissions remained suspended. See Mathew Lee, Rebecca Santana, and Michelle Gumede, US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused, Associated Press, May 9, 2025. These admissions are racist inclinations made state policy.

Wielding the Alien Enemies Act to rush Venezuelans into removal proceedings with inadequate opportunities to challenge deportation. See Mark Sherman, Supreme Court allows Trump to deport Venezuelans under Alien Enemies Act, after judges’ review, Associated Press, April 9, 2025. People, ludicrously deemed enemies, treated as less than people.

Defending immigration stops based on ethnicity, language, occupation, and location. See Lindsay Whitehurst, Supreme Court lifts restrictions on LA immigration stops set after agents swept up US citizens, Associated Press, September 8, 2025. What you look like determines how you'll be treated.

Imposing involuntary institutionalization as a response to homelessness. See Janie Har and Charlotte Karmon, Democrats and advocates criticize Trump’s executive order on homelessness, July 25, 2025. If you cannot see a problem, does it not still exist?

Levying tariffs that burden poorer consumers but protect selected producers. See White House, President Donald J. Trump Imposes Tariffs on Imports from Canada, Mexico and China (Feb. 1, 2025). Economies at home and abroad ruined to the detriment of those not cronies of the Trump family.

The question of whether libertarianism should consider social justice is small against the certainty that Trumpism is an expression of injustice.