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Thats not the case. Certain asset classes are productive, for example stocks return cash to owners without the owners needing to divest themselves from them

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Any other examples? Almost no average Joe retail investor owns stocks for the dividends.

Almost every investor is either directly or indirectly invested in companies that provide dividends.

As for other examples, housing is another popular one.

I'm aware but next to no one actually buys stocks for the dividends.

Housing market is same zero sum as OP described determined by investments in real estate instead of other assets

Any other examples?

The only reason anyone buys those assets is because of the divine share buybacks. Anything else is purely speculation and always reverts back to the mean.

Over the long term effectively 100% of all stock market returns comes from either dividends (and buybacks) or the companies increasing ability to pay dividends (through earnings growth).

I'm not sure why you think having a place to live ( or to rent to someone else) is not productive... mind explaining?

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