I'll give you all the simplified version of why socialism does not work.

If a government heavily taxes the wealthy, it is much more than a "re-distributing" exercise than you may think. Society is based on incentive, you work hard, you earn money. You don't work hard, you don't earn money. It is simple, and it works. The problem with socialism, and wealth disdribution in general, is not in its intentions. It is with its inibility to carry on in the long term what it is designed to do. If working class people get money that they do not work for, why is it an incentive to work harder? And if the wealthy are taxed so heavily that no matter how much they work, their money gets taken away and re-distributed, why bother earning that money when it will only get taken away? This is the fundemental flaw in socialism, and by no means is it an exhaustive reason or explaination. But it is widely known that when the rich are taxed too heavily, and the poorer are given more than their due, it causes major problems in the economy. Workers are then not willing to work hard because they do not need to. The rich no longer have the money to invest, and the rich then no longer have the money to collect taxes from. It is a viscious cycle, and there are many examples in history to look at.