Without Economic Justice, There Is No Social Justice
History shows that durable civil rights progress requires a foundation of material stability for the majority – and ignoring that is a losing strategy.
What I read: “The Reason Every Social Justice Movement Hits A Wall” by Oliver Kornetzke. Posted May 31, 2026.
We live in tumultuous times. American politics has gone bonkers. There is rightward political churn elsewhere on the planet. Factors like climate change, artificial intelligence (automation generally), and wealth inequality affect everyone, but they are disproportionately impacting those nearer the bottom rung of the economic ladder.
When social justice topics are discussed, sometimes the realities of people’s day-to-day lives aren’t taken into consideration. We espouse our desires to ensure that women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and others have equal rights and a voice at the table. We’re on the right side of the moral and ethical argument to do so, but those rights often fall on deaf ears when the person listening is barely getting by or is seeing their quality of life plummet.
That is the underlying premise of Oliver Kornetzke’s excellent post.
The thing that nobody wants to hear but that the historical record makes completely undeniable: no social justice movement, no matter how morally correct, how urgent, or how necessary, has ever achieved durable and structural change in a society where the material conditions of the majority have been allowed to deteriorate into precarity and desperation. Not one. And the reason is not that people are inherently bigoted or irredeemably selfish, though plenty are. The reason is that people who are drowning do not have the psychological bandwidth to prioritize the drowning of others. I say that not as a moral judgment, but as a documented feature of how human beings under material stress actually behave.
As Kornetzke concludes, economic populism “is the only coalition building strategy that has ever actually worked at scale, and everything else follows from it or it does not happen at all.” I think he’s correct. Without economic justice there will be no social justice. Economic justice is a necessary foundation upon which social justice can exist.
This is also why I’m pragmatic in my politics. I understand that if a government isn’t functioning well in a way that gives most people opportunity and economic stability, it becomes a hard sell for those same underprivileged and stressed people to have the mental bandwidth to adequately embrace equal rights and opportunity when they’re barely treading water to stay afloat.
In “Pragmatic Politics,” I explain why I try to look at the overall impact of my support or vote for a candidate or cause. I can see a flaw in a candidate’s platform or background but still support and vote for them if overall they would govern better and create an environment in which the social justice issues I care about can be openly discussed and hopefully addressed.
This is also why I never vote for a candidate that does not have a viable chance of winning an election. I fully understand the desire for third parties (I want them too) and fringe candidates who hold excellent positions and skill sets (that’s what primaries are for), but if they have zero chance of being elected (yes, I know that can change over time), I’m not going to support or vote for them. I consider that a pragmatic political stance.
I know some might consider my position flawed because they believe one must always only back the person or cause that holds their most pure viewpoints or perspectives. I do that sometimes, but not when the political rubber hits the road of elections. At that point, I don’t see the wisdom of backing (or voting for) a candidate or legislation that will never be put in place or enacted during an election.
Someone recently chided me for supporting a Democratic candidate in a primary that they felt was flawed on trans rights issues. That candidate does indeed have some such flaws but has demonstrated a history of being open to dialogue and equity. I also felt they had the best chance of beating the Republican candidate in the general election. On balance, I felt having a reasonable Democrat in that office did more not only overall but even on trans issues since if a Republican ended up winning it would be horrific for the trans community.
These are not easy decisions. There are so many factors at play. Anyway, back to the necessary economic foundation.
I’ve worked on social justice issues of various kinds over the decades. I’ve made the mistake of seeing those issues in a moral vacuum rather than as issues that live within an economic landscape that must be tended to as well if any headway is to be made on civil rights and freedoms.
Therefore, I see causes like universal healthcare, taxing the wealthy, unions and job protections, and so on, as necessary underpinnings to the social justice I hold dear.
This is also why purity politics will often fail. Lyle W. Fass addresses the futility of political purity tests in “The Purity Olympics.” I suggest reading that post. But apart from the moral arrogance to which Fass alludes, single-issue litmus tests for candidates can lead us astray if we ignore that the rest of their politics can foster an economic equality landscape in which that single issue we rightfully care so much about might end up being improved.
The question I ask myself when supporting a candidate or cause is whether that support (and vote) will put us collectively in a better position than not, even if I see flaws. If that answer is yes, they get my support and vote.
I’m writing this in my San Francisco apartment during a state election day. When I voted, I chose who and what I perceived were the best choices for the ultimate outcomes I want to see in my state. I hope others have done the same. I hope you do the same when future elections are held.
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The core flaw in the "economic justice" argument through top-down redistribution is that it confuses state-enforced compliance with actual justice. True justice requires moral agency, and moral agency cannot exist at the point of a bureaucratic bayonet. When a centralized authority steps in to forcefully reallocate resources, it doesn’t create equity; it simply replaces organic human relationships with cold, administrative coercion.
The profound cognitive dissonance of the sophistry driving these arguments is stunning. There is a deep intellectual blindness in celebrating the beauty of autonomous, self-governing communities, subcultures, and voluntary mutual aid networks on one hand, while demanding a top-down state apparatus to engineer economic outcomes on the other.
You cannot praise the organic architecture of belonging that keeps communities cohesive and then advocate for the exact type of centralized intervention that strips those communities of their vital functions.
Real economic resilience and social safety nets aren't built by legislative decree; they are forged through voluntary association, shared protocols, and genuine fraternity. Look at how fraternal orders, clubs, and tight-knit subcultural groups have historically taken care of their own. When a member falls on hard times, the community doesn't lobby a distant bureaucracy; they pass the hat, bake the bread, organize the dinner, and show up at the doorstep. That organic mutual aid is rooted in mutual respect, skin in the game, and a shared covenant of belonging. It is a bottom-up expression of love and responsibility.
Top-down redistribution completely guts this dynamic. It sanitizes charity into a tax obligation and transforms a brotherly helping hand into a transactional state benefit. By outsourcing our moral duties to the government, we erode the very social tissue that makes organic communities vibrant and self-reliant.
To claim that top-down engineering is the only path to justice is a dishonest evasion of how real-world communities actually function. True justice isn't found in a centralized ledger; it's found in the freedom of individuals to voluntarily build networks of care, trust, and mutual accountability from the ground up.