Artful Dodger:
Taxing the rich has never been about monetary equalization but about progressive taxation, and it is sustainable. It won't make people equal and isn't intended to.
Friedman was an effective propagandist, but his theories were never able to explain the great depression.
The free market cannot help equalize financial disparity. Quite the opposite. As taxes and regulations for the wealthy has decreased over the past decades, the middle class has shrunk and the disparity increased dramatically.
It's a fallacy to think either that the wealthy work hard or that those not rich do not. No doubt some of the rich work hard and some of the poor do not.
Few would fall in the category of undeserving that suck off the work of others. Some that do fall into that category are wealthy.
By percentage, more is "confiscated" from the middle and lower classes than the upper class when sales taxes are factored in.