> The problem with the libertarian perspective is that it irrationally assumes the best of people when there is no incentive for them to do so.
I assume no such thing about people regardless of whether they are rich or poor.
I think crux of our disagreement is about the involvement of government in peoples lives. I heard a quote recently, "The more the government tries to do the less well it does everything", I might have mangled that slightly.
Your supposition is that we need the government to force us to be nice and act in a way that is beneficial to society, if so isn't that a losing proposition from the outset?. Who is the moral arbiter here?, I would really like to minimize the amount of situations where government passes judgement on its citizens.
What I am really against is mob rule, the state is a necessary evil, a large state is a larger evil.
I am convinced that while the last century's politics was dominated by left versus right, this century will be dominated by authoritarian versus libertarian. The world isn't black and white, in certain situations we can't avoid making those kind of judgements but where we can avoid it we should.