the politicians, you know, the guys with money

There is overlap, but ultimately it's not a monolith. Anyone can be a politician and politicians succeed or fail on people voting for them. What are the rich gonna do with ownership of all the land and all the companies and all the resources anyway? Effectively enslave everybody? Wait for us to starve so they can keep playing number-go-up in secure enclaves while the world burns around them?

You mention universal income in another comment. If you do it right, that's redistribution. You give people the means to keep living, every other problem gets less intense. I think there's a good chance that when things get bad enough, even hardcore capitalists will go for it because it's a way for capitalism to continue existing in a form that isn't a dead useless husk. IMO a much better option than pulling for a civil war hoping the result will be a socialist utopia and not just evil warlords doing evil warlord stuff.