it feels like every share of income is at its lowest except for the ultra wealthy.
Small-time landlords are an example, as would be anyone who owns a small business and draws cash from profits rather than taking a salary.
> landlord
If you think these two things are compatible you need to talk to more people outside of your bubble.
These gains might be realized at any point if they're willing to pay taxes for them.
Having lots of money but choosing not to spend it doesn't make you any less wealthy.
My bubble of... not-ultra-wealthy people? Are you saying I need to talk to more ultra-wealthy people? This makes no sense.
anything you can do thats useful to society counts as labor (but not vice versa, you can work as a robber or corporate lobbyist). from line cooks to wall street ceos to open source volunteers and stay at home moms who dont get paid but still work. landlords and executives count because management is labor too.
if your income comes from a trust fund or owning properties that you dont manage thats a passive reward for doing nothing. you are not productive. you are a parasite living on the back of everyone else and expecting indefinite rewards for a fixed amount of work you or your parents did years ago.
And we all "profit off of others' labor" when we buy things.
I was responding to the person who said "anything you can do thats useful to society counts as labor". According to them only retired people are allowed to live off investment income. But what if the thing someone labors at doesn't make them income, and they support themselves with investment income? They've satisfied OP's "be useful to society" dictum, so why is it so immoral for them to be a landlord.
If someone buys housing primarily because they have access to capital and credit that renters do not, then charges more than the carrying cost while minimizing maintenance and labor, they are extracting value from ownership of a scarce necessity. The value they capture comes less from producing something new and more from controlling access to housing. This is rent-seeking.
It doesn't mean all landlords are rent seeking, but it's not accurate to say the two have nothing to do two each other, and that it isn't the net effect or intention in almost all cases.
"And we all "profit off of others' labor" when we buy things."
How exactly do I generate a profit when I buy a hairbrush? That's not how profit works. That hairbrush would presumably cost the same to me whether the profits of the company that made it to the owner or the laborer. Between me and the retailer there is a fair exchange of value. Between the laborer and factory owner who made the hairbrush there isn't when he sells the hairbrush at a profit and that profit doesn't return to the laborer. He is extracting the full value of that labor for himself while having done no work in making that hairbrush.
Also let's say buying a hairbrush was unethical - that's why the adage goes that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. But we don't deserve to die or suffer because we're forced into it.
"According to them only retired people are allowed to live off investment income."
That's not what they're saying. They said "no one should have anything other than labor as their main income until they retire" - which could have probably been better worded as "the income you make in your life should come from your labor, not the labor of others".
No one should start a business and pay salaries to their employees instead of themselves?
What if I see that a biotech startup is working on mRNA cancer vaccines, and I want to invest in that? And then it pays off and I make money off of it?
Investing as people think about it only exists because people who invest expect value from the thing they invest in. That value only exists because of a mixture of current and future expected income from the business. If the business itself doesn't generate income for people who aren't doing the actual labor, there's no reason to invest unless you have a personal interest in the continuation of the business, i.e. you're an employee whose income depends on that job. In this scenario you'd have employee-owned businesses.
Obviously this raises the question of where funding comes for new innovation and growth (public investment banks, worker cooperative financing, government grants), but then it goes down a rabbit hole about alternatives to capitalism.
What if it's a robot lawnmower instead of a push mower?
What if you and your neighbors pooled in some money to buy the robot lawnmowers?
What level of indirect management is unethical?
Silicon Valley Is Obsessed with 'Trust Stacking,' and the IRS Doesn't Like It - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48727963 - June 2026
"Spending for the public benefit" has a lot of latitude.
As such, when comparing income tax and capital gains, you should add the impact of corporate taxes. Incidentally, corporate taxes are why many small business owners pay themselves wage income, rather than doing stock buybacks or dividends.
Sure, the stock price should somehow be tied to the actual value of the company, but for a while now it's been mostly indistinguishable from a Ponzi scheme other than a few companies that do sometimes decide to buy back some stock, which makes it slightly less sketchy but if the value is from the company buying it back, it's a lot closer to debt or a bond, which is not at all how anyone treats it.
You've been sold some BS. Usually this is because you're required to take a "reasonable" wage for your role in a company. Otherwise I guarantee you every independent contractor out there (among others) would be operating in a way that made 100% of their income business profit, rather than wages, as it has enormous tax advantages. Approximately everybody tries to find out the least they can take as wage income without pissing off the IRS, and sets their "wage" to whatever that is.
Do the math for yourself. Paying corporate taxes on profits, then dividend taxes on what gets paid out is not a savings versus paying income+payroll tax (which comes from money that is treated as an expense at the corporate level).
It has nothing to do with the IRS or taxes.
Not people then.
If I was talking about "ultra obese" people, you wouldn't assume I was talking about everybody who has a couple of extra pounds?