It's true. I don't. I don't understand how anyone can bear not to work, instead living off the work of others.
You've just described most socialists, as well as trust fund babies (and, quite frankly, many of the most pestiferous socialists are trustafarians - trust fund babies who like to play at being working class) and those few people who inherit the family fortune.
You most definitely have not described any business owners. They do work hard - hard to create a business that will both grow and be self-sustaining. If that business owner manages to achieve that goal, then isn't she or he entitled to enjoy the fruits of her or his hard labor?
Then there is the necessary corollary that goes with the statement that a business owner - and this time that also includes trustafarians and those who inherited the family fortune - lives off of the work of others: if no one "lives off of the work of others" then no one has a job, and each must fend for him/herself and live by her/his own wits. That is subsistence farming, at best.
And that, quite frankly, is one of the two necessary end results of socialism; the other being the slavery of the proletariat to the government and, more precisely, to the whim of those who run the government.
With all due respect to your wife, people who are not college freshman and are still socialists are simply stupid; they have utterly failed to actually think things through and have lost touch with reality.