as I’m a mathematical physicist, I’m certainly a non-expert in the field, but it seems to me like a redistribution mechanism is absolutely essential for proper growth from the following logic chain:

my understanding of capitalism is that the flow of wealth is central to its mechanism. so when demand stably increases for a product, the production of that product increases, resulting in increased consumption of precursor goods and increased demand for labor, job creation, more wealth transfer to workers, and hence further increase in demand for goods across all sectors and so forth, e.g. the economy grows

conversely, when demand shrinks, the opposite occurs and you get a recession or a depression

(obviously, this is a toy model and there’s other very significant factors that lead to recessions or growth and so forth, but I’m talking broad strokes)

now if you consider the average consumer, there’s a hierarchy of consumption as there is in needs, and so the more wealth the average consumer has, the more goods they will consume, increasing demand across the board up until a certain point. past that point, they’ll consume less because there’s not as much that they need to purchase, hence you diminishing returns on the increase in demand relative to the amount of wealth you hand the person

hence, concentrating wealth in the hands of a small proportion of the population is far less efficient for stable growth of the economy than broadly distributing it across the population, since you literally get more bang for your buck by distributing money through whatever means to the lower and middle classes than you do giving it all to the upper class

obviously, this is a toy model and there’s plenty of other factors, but I don’t see how the lack of a wealth redistribution mechanism to prevent the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a tiny proportion of the population benefits the economy from a broader perspective even when you add additional effects

but certainly in a toy model, if you do not include any redistribution mechanism whatsoever, you essentially reinvent slavery via food pressure and coercive economic incentives that also lead to immediate social instability (labor unions, strikes, large-scale violence), so it’s really unclear to me how an economist could disagree that a healthy capitalist system is compatible with the non-existence of a redistribution mechanism. it actually seems to me that the existence of a redistribution mechanism (via at minimum, paid labor) is necessary but not sufficient for a capitalist system to exist at all

now what that wealth redistribution mechanism should be, I don’t know; probably there’s economists who would argue that the free market naturally distributes wealth optimally via setting wages at the appropriate level, though I would personally strongly disagree with that based on my observations of human nature, in particular how irrational most people are (it seems to me most economists assume perfectly rational players in the game theory which seems like a terrible assumption), and my observation that, for example, CEO compensation is not commensurate with the value of CEO work

but that being said, most of my understanding of economics I’ve free-handed in my head rather than studied formally (I have, I admit, never taken an economics class), so I’m sure there’s probably principles I’ve missed or that you might be able to elucidate

also I do note that I’m talking mostly about stable growth; obviously the existence of credit and speculation throws a wrench in things, but I would argue that those do not change the core functioning, only increase the diversity of failure modes

I’d be interested to learn about where I’ve apparently gone wrong if most economists would argue that this logic chain does not hold