And why do you believe that it's important to force self-reliance onto a society that is already ultraproductive by any comparison through history? Why does it have to be punitive instead of inspirational to be self-reliant?

Because it sounds very unnatural for a social animal such as us humans to try to be completely self-reliant... We depend on others, we always have been and we probably always will, so leverage that instead of striving for some weird artificial sense of independence.

The American system is equal opportunity not equal outcomes. The latter is the euro model. Both parts of the world often underperform the stated value/goal and we American's have some work to do here. Without throwing capitalism out it would not kill to restore the pendulum back to the middle. US corporations under the rubric of maximizing shareholder value + DC support for tax accounting + liberal accommodation for globalism has given the powerful too much of a structural bias. And def not talking solutions ala Trump here. In this way universal or basic income is a no go here.