Emphasis mine. This is the point I am trying to make regarding “leeches.” It is our efforts to not let anyone leech off welfare that create the welfare trap that keeps people who would like to be working out of work. Making people demean themselves time and time again to get help in the name of keeping out a few cheaters is costing us more than the cheaters would. It makes the system adversarial instead of helpful, it makes people feel like the system isn’t really there to help them, and it makes people want to cheat. It’s not that different than how bombing terrorists makes more terrorists. You can’t brutalize (masses of) people into good behaviour.
If there is enough to go around (and arguably there wasn’t when the Soviet Union was formed, we’ve had some substantial advances since then) then you ought to work from the premise that there is enough to go around. And remember that many “free loaders” may be people with various mental illnesses and neurodiversity issues who would actually be able to participate if they were given the chance to, but can’t fit in with the existing system.
Capitalism isn’t exactly a state of nature, since, as discussed above, it is a revolutionary idea from the middle ages. We’ve had a few revolutionary ideas since then, and capitalism needs to take a back seat to several. I think treating people like adults who can make their own decisions is usually a good idea (this is more attributable to human rights than capitalism), and it seems like these days grocery stores are a pretty good way to distribute food (though this is more because we have an abundance of food thanks to science, if there was a shortage of food then this would be a dismal way to distribute it). Capitalism as an ideology - the idea that we ought to have things run privately as a good unto itself - is a menace that somehow (as an example) leads the US government to spend more on health care than any other developed country while not providing health care to the majority of its people.
