I don't feel limiting the income someone can have just because they're good at it is fair. If I was that person, I'd take my business and my money to another country that doesn't rip me off in favour of lazy or unambitious people just because I worked hard and became successful. It's as if because I'm fitness-obsessed and built insane fitness and health, I had to check in every day at the gym giving up part of the benefits I gathered for myself just so people who don't care to go to the gym can be a bit fit too.
Countries that try something like this are usually quickly driven into economic ruin (happens a lot in South America) and have to resort to the so-called "corralito" so people don't just leave the sinking ship with their money, basically forcing everyone to become poor and miserable just so the nation can survive.
What would be amazing is if countries provided a base income for every registered citizen that covered the basic costs of living, and work was mostly optional, for people who want to afford different hobbies or activities. Then it would be less morally ambiguous to treat employees like unnamed NPCs, as you'd never be toying with other people's ability to feed their children.
Some European countries are already dabbing into this, albeit timidly (with heavy restrictions on who qualifies for this "social salary"), and proving it is a successful formula that actually boosts the health of the country's economy, not to mention the quality of life and health of its inhabitants.
Your 1st point is detached from the reality of why such scenarios manifest and is postulated from a position of modern detachment generally. You're 2nd point is much more interesting and something that the future may well bring forth.
I'll go into a little more detail, but try not to wall of text.
Taxes have always existed. They are not an invention of crazy leftists. Historically, if someone became rich because they were good at something, then they would be considered a threat, and would still have been 'taxed till they were poorer', in order to 'balance the power' and ensure the emperor/king/whatever was still top of the power tree. The ones who objected usually got beheaded or led their countries into brutal civil war.
Taxes were mostly raised for the sole purpose of fighting wars. The purpose of the wars was usually solely to increase the power of the emperor/king/whatever or to defend said person from invasion from their similar in a different region. Pretty much whatever avenue yo chose in life, death was lurking round every corner.
The 'crazy left', that has always existed in one form of other, simply believes taxes could be better utilized in trying to maintain peace and social cohesion. A means to reduce the chaos and continual cycle of death brought about by the natural competition of 'kingly' types.
Because 'kingly types' always become too detached from reality, too wrapped up in their own success to be able to comprehend the notion that they are still part of the community which enabled them. Every time they say "no, you cannot have some more" to one of their loyal followers, they lose another loyal follower. Successful people weren't successful because they had wealth, they were successful because they had loyal followers - which created the wealth.
The concept of social taxation is a means to separate the wealth from this form of detachment. It still allows people to attain great wealth, it merely prevents them from from turning that wealth into chaotic power. Hence the greater the wealth the greater the tax burden.
Communism muddies the waters by assuming too much control of individuals, both philosophically and physically. It is the flip-side of detached regality, it is a detached power-mad bureaucracy that simply converts a wealth hierarchy into a power hierarchy. The same thing but via a different currency of power-trade.
Socialism is the happy middle that only gets destroyed when the misguided extremes are able to propagate. The extremes being individuals who can only process extreme cynicism, who believe any system is inherently corrupt and the only way to proceed is to go full-self-interest, aka: blind short-sightedness.
The struggle is eternal, it doesn't ever end, because the struggle is with human nature itself.
Hence, your 2nd point, the latest idea to try and restructure the chaos via a universal living wage. Which is an excellent idea. The problem being, some people, well many people in fact, are incredibly unintelligent, and what you would be doing is simply providing a cash pot for unsavory people to have a permanent source of stolen wealth. Landlords would just raise rent to accommodate the new level, retailers would increase prices to whatever they could maximize from it, and you'd be forever in an inflationary battle to prevent those on the lowest wage from being fully exploited.
Like socialism, it could only really work if people, the majority of people, were 'into' the 'spirit' of the exercise. And you would likely require state-intervention on price control and the like. It wouldn't be long before you're so close to regular socialism that you might as well have simply tried to perfect normal, current socialism rather than try to reinvent the wheel for the umpteenth time.