Generally, the people interested in this are interested because time is the most valuable resource of all. If they can obtain enough passive income to be independently wealthy, they can contribute to humanity in whatever way they choose vs being forced to sell their time to a day job where they have limited control of their life.
Creating value and receiving some percent of that as rent is not inherently a bad behavior. But if you think you have a better, more "noble" answer, I'd love to hear it.
> obtain enough passive income to be independently wealthy
"Passive income" does not make you "independently wealthy". You avoid "being forced to sell [your] time" because you extract wealth from those who do.
Rent seeking does not, by definition, involve "creating value":
In economics and in public-choice theory, rent-seeking involves seeking to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking results in reduced economic efficiency through poor allocation of resources, reduced actual wealth creation, lost government revenue, increased income inequality, and (potentially) national decline. - Wikipedia
From Taking Back Adam Smith and “Classic Liberalism”:
Many conservative economists claim to be staunch followers of Adam Smith. They shout slogans such as “Supply and Demand!” “Capitalism”! “ “Let the markets work!” However, for anyone who actually read Adam Smith, you would note that the “invisible hand” was not his only observation of the inner workings of capitalism. Adam Smith recognized that many in the economy were making gobs of money, but weren’t contributing anything. He was referring to what was eventually called “economic rent”.
Smith observed that all production required 3 things. Land, Capital, and Labor. A very simple example would be a brick factory. The building and oven needed to create the bricks are the “capital” – the owners are the capitalists. The people making the bricks is the “labor” – the people doing the actual work. The Land the factory occupies and the clay used to make the bricks is the “land” – the owners of the land are the “Rentiers”. Any money made by selling the bricks is then divided up between these three groups: the rentiers, the capitalists, and the workers.
Where many here on HN and I will differ is what forms of passive income are rent seeking rather value creating applications of the output of one's previous labor.
I think the flaw in the system is land/personal property. If you have enough money to call 'dibs' on a shared resource like that, then we create a feudal system. There is no legal place to just live without paying the landowner.
