In the course of a debate on whether one has a "right to healthcare," I made the point that it is the philosophy of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" that fosters a depressed, bitter underclass, rather than laissez faire capitalism. I assert this because I believe human beings begin to resent every indulgence and practice of their fellow human beings if they see these as coming at their expense and their sacrifice.

Worth reading is a brief book by David Kelley: Unrugged Individualism: The Selfish Basis for Benevolence. Here's an excerpt, edited by me to compensate for removing it from context.

...Rand [the founder of Objectivism] rejected the assumption that the interests of rational people conflict in any fundamental sense. The objective values required by our nature, the values that underlie our specific interests, require that we seek peaceful, productive, cooperative relationships with others; that we deal with others by trade, exchanging value for value, rather than by plunder and predation. Trade is a principle of justice... Insofar as benevolence means a commitment to behaving peacefully towards others, respecting their rights and giving them what is due, it is an issue of justice, which is a selfish virtue, not an act of altruism.

Rand also recognized a role for benevolence in the sense of extending positive help... ...[T]he help we give to people whom we value is not a sacrifice. ...[Giving help to strangers, especially in emergencies, is appropriate] on the basis of 'the generalized respect and good will which one should grant to a human being in the name of the potential value he represents.

...Going further, Objectivists have argued that altruism is incompatible with genuine benevolence. If self esteem is an objective human need [Objectivists hold that it is], then we cannot see ourselves as means to the needs of others -- we cannot accept the premise that someone else's need is a moral claim on our efforts and resources, overriding the use of those efforts and resources for our own benefit -- without coming to see other people as threats and feeling hostility towards them.

...Accounts of life under communism provide real-world confirmation of [this] analysis. When self-sacrifice for the common good was installed as the organizing principle of society, individuals became mean, petty, suspicious, hostile...