Stealing from one to benefit another is NEVER a good way to do things.
Well actually, if people realized the benefits they have from it and if governments were finally able to work more effciently, people would probably give their share more freely.
If you look at the history of Europe, you will see that very often the poorest would cause riots and uprisings due to their bad living conditions.
If I dont have anything to loose I might just as well try to fight my way into a better life. This caused many deaths among the rich people too. Unnecessary deaths either way.
Today if you have a father that is faced with not being able to pay the life savin treatment for his dying child, you might be looking at the next bank robber.
If you have a sufficiently large amount of poor people in a simillar situation, you might end up with a riot, or even a revolution.
It is amazing what you can get people to do if they feel that they have nothing to loose anyway. Anyway in that case the rich usually loose more than just a small share of their wealth.
In addition to this, we all can have accidents, or life chaning events that can turn us from a wealthy capable person into a poor bastard with no perspective whatsoever. In that case it can be good to have some support that allows you to get back on your feet again. Heck I am eternally grateful for the health care system that we have here, since it did save my life and that without ruining me financially (if you had a heart attack, financial worries are not beneficial for your recovery).
So donating some of your money to society can actually be in your own best interest.
The former is the moral way, the right way, the second is the socialist way.
In a democracy the majority of voters gets to decide. If you dont like that, you have to live in a dictatorship (though it is unlikely that you will be happier there unless it is your own and then ->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles).
So if the majority wants socialism, they may have it.
It is democratic to bow to the will of the majority, though you can critizise it of course and try to pave the way for a political change one way or the other. Obamas election was possible because sufficiently many voters were unhappy with the current situation.
However, as you should be able to see as well, in a democracy things usually end up somewhere in the middle. Even in a country with a socialist majority, you dont have a Sovient Union communism model.
Everybody gives up a little bit for a compromise that allows everyone to have as much of his will without having to give up to much in return.
It is a bit of a pendulum effect that will go one way or the other.
If the pendulum swings to far into one direction it will swing back further in the other. So keeping a good moderate climate is desireable.