The traditional liberal justification of democracy appeals to the rights ground of social morality. According to this ground, citizens are entitled to appropriate and dispose of their property according to absolute property rights. These rights impose no obligation on appropriations of property that compromise the life interest of fellow citizens. Against contemporary democratic theory, I argue that democracy has not developed through the simple evolution of this rights ground to include positive rights to welfare, but rather, through struggles rooted in an alternative ground of social morality, the needs ground. The needs ground argues that the existence of a fundamental need is sufficient for claims on the resources necessary to satisfy it, and from it follows a conception of democracy as social and not simply political self-determination.