On the need for safety nets

If another person commits to work toward the common good of my polity, I have a duty to ensure he doesn't starve, has a place to live, and has a shirt on his back.

Unless redistribution toward the poor actually would destroy the economy--not just slow down, not just "stagnate," but actually fall apart--we have a responsibility to ensure these things for anybody who tries to hold up his/her end of the bargain.

Otherwise, we are forgetting that money provides the tools but not the substance of living, as Aristotle says. If my pursuit of money is only possible by making others live in poverty while willing to work, it is not worth it. If I have extra tools and somebody else does not, I can be happy with less while he cannot be happy without more.

The state, to be properly called such, lets us focus not on living but on living well. All of us.