I agree with everything written here. As for getting to the bottom of things, I feel compelled to recommend to the author (and any other readers of this) “Equality Is All We Need” (to be clear, by me) here in Medium.

The ultimate issue to be resolved is the issue of justice. We cannot possibly achieve justice without a correct understanding of what it is. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and (non-Marxist) socialists have thought they had it figured out, and all have been close in one way and another, but none have gotten it completely right. [Marx rejected justice as a ‘real’ thing, but characterized it instead as merely a story told by the powerful in society to justify their place in it.]

My studies have convinced me that the ethic of justice has to be mutual respect (of a basic kind — taking one another into account). It follows from equality; a society governed by it would maximize liberty as a practical matter. I have spent my adult life studying, in academia and outside it, mutual respect as the ethic of justice and its implications for society.

For a quick look at the macro-level socioeconomic implications of that ethic for the economy, there is “For Crying Out Loud, ACCEPT That A SOLUTION Actually EXISTS” (letting my frustration show).