Systems Thinkers have observed a common set of recognisable behaviours in many different areas of life such as business, markets and life in general. They call them archetypes.
<i>Success to the Successful</i> is one of those archetypes. Some of these archetypes are embedded in 'common sense' sometimes with different names, such as <i>The Tragedy of the Commons</i>, <i>Addiction</i> and <i>Limits to Growth</i>.
It's pretty clear what <i>Success to the Successful</i> means: a more powerful player continues to get more and more resources than the other player(s), so reducing their power and perhaps destroying them.
From the paper Systems Archetype Basics: From Story to Structure 
we read: "There are three conditions that create the dynamics of a <i>Success to the Successful</i> archetype:
<ol>
<li>There is a zero-sum game structure where two or more alternatives (aka players) are vying ... for the same resource. This means that whenever one gets more of that resource, the others are most likely to get less.</li>
<li>Garnering more resources does in fact help the chosen alternative to become more successful.</li>
<li>The reduction of resources to the other alternative(s) accelerates its diminishing success</li>
</ol>
Stephani Losi in her blog Risk Musings gives examples of <i>Success to the Successful</i> from poker, markets and life. We can all understand her markets example in which Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Nvidia, Google/Alphabet, Amazon become increasingly more successful than competitors in their same space.
Gary Stevenson - a highly successful bond trader turned prophet - explains in this interview by James O'Brien (64 mins) how the super rich of this world (in banking, trading and industry) are siphoning wealth from the rest of us. Another example of <i>Success to the Successful</i>, and am important warning.
But success cannot go on forever, as explained in another Archetype: <i>Limits to Success</i>; also described in that same paper .