But that's exactly what we should do. Or, more accurately, we should leave it to private citizens to decide, of their own free will, to render assistance (and prevent anybody from using the state's threat of violence to force an entire society to render assistance.)

Until the full dangers of death and failure operate as incentives, moderated only by the free choice of individuals to cooperate and render assistance, our economies will never grow to their full extent, and our prosperity will always remain limited. In the long term, any society that clings to these dysfunctional social policies will be outcompeted by societies that discard them. In the much longer term, if the planet as a whole is held back by these policies, we may expect to be outcompeted by other, more progressive alien civilisations.

Yet that is what happens on the streets of America every single day. I think your statement should be "you'd have a hard time getting your average American majority to understand that people are dying on their streets today".. because, it is happening.