It would seem that liberals perceive wealth as something that is like a river with people living all along it and if everyone only takes what he needs all would be wonderful but some greedy people insist on diverting part of the river into their own reservoirs and they keep taking more and more of it. They simply cannot seem to understand that it is more like a system where people must carry salt water from the ocean home and work hard to desalinify it so that it can be used for drinking therefore those who work the hardest have the most fresh water. Those who can come up with a new technology to desalinify water may have far more than they might ever actually need and others may find it easier to mow that person’s lawn, roof his house, cut his hair, cook his meals etc. in exchange for water than to trek back and forth carrying their own water. Liberals imagine that the person who has all the water stole it from them somehow and should be compelled to give it back.
I have long wondered why some people cannot seem to comprehend what seems so simple and yet those same people often claim to have knowledge of things that I despair of ever understanding.
That is a wonderful analogy.
Good analogy...
Another way of saying it is that liberals view food/housing/wealth/property/money as a ZERO SUM GAME.
There is only a fixed amount of it (in your metaphor: the river) and a fixed allocation per person.
In reality, it is not a zero-sum game because technology and/or hard work yields more food/products/housing/wealth/property/money.
On top of that, the “COLLECTIVE” owns all of the assets held in their narrow “zero-sum-game” world.