I think you misunderstand. My ideals (and what I suppose to be the closest model to reality) are closer to what you are calling the classical view. Your mistake here is in conflating capital with capitalists. Capital is a tool, capitalists are people who use (some would say abuse) that tool in line with what you are calling liberalism. Labor (the group, not the action; perhaps better termed laborers) can, should, and does use capital, but labor and capitalists in their most elemental forms will always be at odds, because the goal of labor is to do enough work to live a fulfilled and dignified life, and the goal of capitalists is to exploit capital and labor as efficiently as possible in order to acquire more capital.

Circling back, redistribution is necessary because, under Capitalism, capital accrues to itself at a higher rate of return than does labor (Piketty). Without the socioeconomic infrastructure to redistribute regularly in smaller and more palatable amounts, a major redistribution event is necessary to break the positive feedback loop of capital's higher rate of return. This is not pitting labor against capital, it is forcing capital back into the hands of labor so that it can be used towards their ends rather than that of capitalists. Note that collective use is valid in this hypothetical; the difference is whether capital is being deployed for monetary gain or social needs (the "common good").

> I think you misunderstand. My ideals [...] are closer to what you are calling the classical view.

I'm not so sure, because I reject the idea that capital and labor are always at odds. They are at odds if we take as normative and basic the "liberal" hyperindividualist pursuit of self-interest as the highest aim of a human being.

I also reject redistribution as the primary means of addressing what are first order problems. For example, if employers are paying less than a family wage while they themselves reap handsome profits, then the goal isn't to redistribute later somehow while propping up a culture of normalized greed, but to distribute justly in the first place. Redistribution, like you mention, is indeed an extreme event, but I contest the idea that it must come to such extremes, or that redistribution (even in "smaller and more palatable amounts") should be the norm for addressing bad distribution in the first place.

We needn't be pigeonholed into the false dichotomies that our modern paradigm, with some of its bogus categories and "necessities", imposes. Those clamoring for socialism are asking to jump out of the frying pan into the fire (I don't claim you are calling for this, but a naive segment is). Cultural norms, buttressed by the appropriate laws (the law is a teacher), are perhaps a better place to focus our efforts and our imagination. We should pay attention to the false categories and norms we have internalized that remove the stigma from predatory practices like underpaying or extracting compound interest. When you create a culture that is hostile to such practices, that goes a long way to shaping laws and behaviors.

I do not propose a political program here. I propose that we ought to examine the moral assumptions that box us into a drab range of possibilities. The hyperindividualist "liberalism" in question construes freedom apart from objective moral norms and enjoys privatizing moral questions. But even redistribution is a moral question! This is a larger topic than I have time to explore here, but if there is a take away, it is that we must stop skirting or privatizing discussion of basic moral questions (here of an economic nature and what they themselves presuppose), thinking that this somehow avoids conflict in a heterogeneous society. This only buys time as problems fester and persist.