Socialism used to be about an economic intervention - namely to usurp all the capitalists and carry on doing the same work that workers were doing anyway, but with all the business assets being owned socially instead of privately bought through the use of money as capital, y’know, like when it was first being created and defined and the terms meant what they were made to mean.
But now it’s used instead of the term “Authoritarianism”, basically its exact opposite, where government has authority over your personal life, and instead of the means to work being owned socially/publicly, they’re controlled by a state that’s composed of elites, not “the people”/workers.
Likewise Liberalism used to mean being liberal with regard to social issues, with minimal to no government intervention… but now it’s used instead of the term “Authoritarianism”, basically its exact opposite, where government has authority over your personal life.
Ask any actual leftist what they want, and they’ll usually support what Socialism used to mean for the economy, and what Liberalism used to mean for your personal life.
I’m not in favour of government intervening in the personal and private lives of families - which is how the two terms have been appropriated to mean by not-Liberal-not-Socialists.
I am in favour of them making up for where the “Classical Liberal” ideal of “perfect competition” routinely fails. The “hand of the market” is supposed to keep the economy in check, but Capitalist “success” today basically revolves around avoiding perfect competition scenarios as much as possible. Poor people don’t have the power to keep this in check, they have their iota of consumer influence, but only insofar as they can buy what they’re given or go without - and you can’t go without everything if you want to stay alive. So they elect a government to act on their collective wishes and keep the capitalists in check, but then the capitalists just buy their votes and those who are elected end up as corporate cronies who actually help make the whole situation worse. What ends up happening is more like a kind of Socialism for Capitalists! Any breaks the poor get are just to maintain their ability to carry on working and getting paid less than they earn their employer so they can profit off more people for longer - therefore getting even richer than they otherwise would.
I am against this kind of intervention.
I want intervention against this kind of intervention.
But back onto “taking advantage of the (economic) success of others”: be as productive as you like, whatever your politics. You will anyway - regardless of the financial reward, because internal satisfaction is what drives the productive anyway.
And if they produce or help produce physically way more in the way of goods and services than they need (as so very many do with all the technology, infrastructure and working methods that we now use), then is it immoral for that to be shared with those who don’t produce as much as they need or anything at all for whatever reason - given that the surplus of production is so vast that it’s easily possible to do so? Whenever I’ve had more money than I need, I’ve been quite happy for it to go towards others - and many other people think so too.
As is always the case, your issue will be with consent. Share the fruits of your labour, sure, but not because the government is forcing you to, right?
Well the problem is that not all people “think so too” - they are unhappy for the massive surplus that they’ve helped create to be shared with others.
Let’s not forget that the “art” of paying people less than they earn your company is NOT productivity - nor is the knack for finding the best ways to do this. It’s a redistribution technique like taxation, but with no accountability. “It’s the market, not me!” If it’s the market that “dictates” the wages of your employees such that they are less than what they earn you, then you don’t have to feel any responsibility (something of which you claimed to be in favour) for taking from people and giving to yourself: it’s “your” company. But somehow, if the distribution is visible and accountable, suddenly then it’s awful! It’s only “your” company because you were rich and connected enough in the first place to buy the stuff you needed to start and fund its operations, and it’s “others” who actually do the operations for you - it’s more theirs than it is yours, just because you happened to start off richer than them.
The particularly rich get and stay rich because they are unhappy for wealth to be distributed with accountability, which is exactly why they their charity is never enough, and it’s certainly insufficient to undo the distribution-without-accountability that is making and keep them rich. Bill Gates can give so much because he’s admitted he makes money faster than he can spend it - he genuinely doesn’t need it, but you don’t see him trying to undo the mechanism that channels so much money to him. And since none of them do, then we need a body that will: a government. Sorry, if the rich aren’t going to be socially (and environmentally) responsible, then they don’t “deserve” to be fully in charge. It’s the rich who are the entitled ones, choosing to pay themselves more than their employees (profit). They’re all engaged in these petty battles with their counterparts - trying to outdo each other materially in a pissing contest, when there are plenty of others who could be said to “deserve” it more. Honestly, I think beyond a certain monetary wealth, it should be become a points system - it’d serve the same purpose, but not at the expense of society and even the economy.
And who really makes this money anyway? Employers wouldn’t be rich if they didn’t have employees to profit from - they owe their ENTIRE income to them, because that is what their entire income is literally from. And the employer and employees wouldn’t be able to constitute a productive business if it weren’t for all their customers. And all this money has to circulate through all kinds of other businesses and other people too to get back to the money “made” by any particular employer - they owe the ENTIRE economy. Money isn’t made, it is attracted from an existing flow that travels through all people. Indirect causes are still causes.
I have no doubt. So many people of all incomes work their ass off. It’s almost as though there’s no correlation between how hard you work and how much money you get - in so many cases. People who work this hard have to convince themselves that their work was worth it, so of course they think they deserved every penny they made. Maybe you’d have made less if there was no education spending… I don’t know what education you had. Education is just another area that can’t be left to the risks of complete privatisation. It’s all very well taking a moral high ground and saying it’s the parents’ responsibilities to fund the education of their child and children, but since there are inevitably going to be economic losers if there are going to be economic winners, with all of the losers being unable to afford the education, just imagine the sheer degree of incompetence going around… Obviously with no hope, crime becomes tempting - maybe you’re saying you’d be happier to live in a country of even more unemployed criminal morons, but I can’t say I feel the same way.
You have to look beyond just your own needs and your own situation, you have to consider that tough love isn’t an optimal solution for everyone in all situations: for all the people in situations where it does help there are many where it does quite the opposite. In an economy and a society, what goes around quite literally comes around - you have to see ALL the system and know all the potential consequences just to give your own needs and situation any real meaningful context whatsoever. Otherwise you’re just imagining “what would it be like if social responsibility didn’t have to apply to me and others?” which is just fantasy.