From what I know of world it appears that being a country that is a great place to live for the average person is strongly correlated with having a good social welfare system.  (I understand that correlation does not always imply causation.)  If this is true, and my perception of the world tells me it is, then it&#x27;s reasonable to desire a society with strong social welfare programs.<p>I think we all win when each of us, even the undeserving, get to live at a base level of existence without fear.  Off the top of my head my understanding of history is such that societal stability is best accomplished when there are lots of people living in misery.  It&#x27;s worth the expenditure of tax money to ensure my neighbor is not living in misery.<p>Solzhenitsyn said that the quality of a society can be determined by how it treats its prisoners.  I expand upon this a bit by including the poor and powerless.