repeat after me:

landlords produce nothing

landlords produce nothing

landlords produce nothing

construction workers produce houses. repair workers maintain them. landlords neither produce a good nor provide a service

you can evaluate whether someone produces a good or provides a service by what the world would look like if everyone who had that job vanished overnight.

we need people working in construction and repair. (at least until those jobs can be automated - which will happen.) but landlords provide nothing, and if they all vanished, our society would get by just fine without them

they exist solely because our economic system rewards people who own property more than it rewards people who produce goods or provide services

see also stockbrokers, insurance companies, corporate lawyers, patent trolls, debt buyers, banks and penny loan companies...

these are all jobs that generate wealth for the people in them despite no actual material contribution to people's wellbeing. *we do not need these jobs.* we can live without them.

over the last few decades, and especially since 2008, the american economy has undergone what's called "financialization" - the increasing market presence in our economy of industries that generate wealth without producing goods or providing services.

in other words, our labor has become less and less connected to actual human needs.

this, in turn, is because the advance of technology increased total wealth, and capitalism allocated that surplus wealth to those who own capital (property). so those who are actually necessary to society work for a pittance...

...while corporate lawyers and lobbyists, people whose entire field is a red queen's race, make millions.

this is not a healthy economy, people

this is a powder keg

didn't really intend for this to become a thread but here's some further reading, a partial inspiration for this thread: https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/