This article studies the changes in legal thought, which preceded the constitutional recognition of social rights in Chile. By looking at documents produced between 1880 and 1925, it evaluates how legal scholars perceived the relation between State and welfare. The objective is to illustrate the formation of a critical legal movement, which questioned the normative foundations of the nineteenth-century State, by representing it as a guardian of property rights. This critique of law led to a reevaluation of the legal system, making the State assume the correction of economic inequalities as one of its main functions. The recognition of social rights in the Constitution of 1925 was the culmination of a longer process of legal change.