I think the answer comes in the form of psychology. If you mitigate distress to people in the early years formation, by perhaps having a decent taxation rate and providing affordable nursery care, better foster care systems, more social workers etc - you lower the amount of collective childhood trauma, lower the amount of criminals who emerge and create children who have a blueprint to learn and become citizens.

Should you create a society in which there is a sink or swim mentality, the sinkers will rapidly outnumber the swimmers and turn you into a less kind, more dangerous society. This is the principle difference (I'd argue) between Europe, which has democratic socialism, and The US, where there is more rampant capitalism and less attention paid to socialist ideals.

Socialism, taxation towards a level playing field seems like the correct answer, not just for the poor, but also for the rich too. :o)