[GavinMcG]

But that's exactly the distinction that matters. Treating the services one has received as a debt implies that one must pay back that debt and is free of any other obligation. In reality, as you're pointing out, we're all contributing to the current and future wellbeing of each other, and we all benefited from others' contributions in the past.

Pay-it-back vs. invest/pay-it-forward have quite different political implications, and the fact that society does and always has been in pay-it-forward mode gives lie to the earlier commenter's claim that subsidies are slow but fatal.