This idea of redistribution, which is an official, government-as-Robin-Hood idea, might have worked during medieval times when leading wealthy landowners (who were also the class of people who governed) kept their agricultural peasants and indentured servants dramatically poor even though they protected and provided for them. But it does not apply to our modern, industrialized context of sustained economic growth.
John Addison Teevan, "Can Government Institutions Be Wise and Moral in Redistributing Income?" Journal of Markets & Morality 16, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 635-654