On the other hand, having family take care each other is a more robust and decentralized system than us all being atomized and being cared for by the state.
> more robust and decentralized system than us all being atomized and being cared for by the state.
Decentralized, sure. Robust? No way. Unless they are wealthy and economically independent, your family are a small number of failures away from not being able to support you. A locally correlated failure ( i.e a plant or industry that employs many of them folds) can knock out the support system. Not to mention that unlike government programs, your family are under no legal obligation to help you.
Here's some robustness for you: our ancestors have been depending on their respective families since humans were a species. Whereas the oldest extant government are only several hundred years old. And many aren't even as old as my grandparents.
> Here's some robustness for you: our ancestors have been depending on their respective families since humans were a species
It's apples-to-oranges to compare a biological definition of robustness at the species level over eons to the definition we use to evaluate the current condition of people in modern societies. They are completely different metrics, operating over different timescales, and measuring totally different phenomena. Your usage measures the survival of humans as a species on biological time scales. The version of robustness that is relevant to the article is the chance of destitution or suffering faced by the typical member of a modern society, given modern society's standards for measuring those.
Wild animal species experience extremely high mortality rates compared to humans, due to a number of factors, including predation, disease, displacement, and environmental changes.
The whole experiment of human "civilization", from animal domestication, to agriculture, to the development of technology and the societal structures needed to support all of those, has been about protecting us from the risks nature poses to our existence.
> Whereas the oldest extant government are only several hundred years old. And many aren't even as old as my grandparents.
Whether it's an extant government is irrelevant. Governments come and go, but their function doesn't remain unfulfilled for long. We know that governments of some kind or another have existed since at least 3000BC, and importantly, that these governments had mechanisms for redistribution of their society's productivity (regardless of the direction of that redistribution).
You'd probably find that ancient humans, just like many animals, formed cooperative groups that weren't limited to family, with children not infrequently cared for by nonfamily. A social safety net is nearly as ancient as life itself and seems to be contributing to the robustness of many lifeforms.
It's not more robust. One bad accident or health bill can ruin the financial stability of an entire family. Diffusing costs across a whole nation is cheaper and more stable than diffusing costs across a handful of people who are related.
