Our economy is like a big game of Monopoly, except all the properties are already owned by other people (unless you’re lucky enough to inherit).

Every time you roll the dice, you land on a piece of property owned by someone else, subsequently owing that property owner their share of “rent”.

But unless you were blessed with a nice inheritance or parents financially supporting you, you don’t have any money to give to the landlord because you started off with nothing. So in order to pay off your debt, you must figure out a way to obtain that money. This means working for someone else willing to pay you for your labor.

Luckily a neighboring landlord is hiring for a property manager and takes a liking to you, so you get a job working for the other landlord.

Essentially we have a game where the ownership/rentier class doesn’t have to do any work of their own, yet profits off the labor of the non-owners.

As a non-owner, the only way into the rentier class is to save enough money to buy out the properties (one may not be enough) of the owners. The feasibility of this is dependent on income relative to expenses (wages relative to rent) and property prices. Unfortunately wages are so low relative to property prices that only a relative minority are ever able to achieve this mobility into the rentier class within their lifetimes.

As more and more players enter the game (more people being born, immigration) but the supply of paid jobs don’t increase at a sufficient enough rate to accommodate the influx of demand for work (automation), the players’ bargaining power in the labor market reduces. This means reduced compensation, benefits, working conditions, and job security. A glut of aspiring workers relative to quality job openings means that families and random strangers have to start moving in together to afford the rent, and some even go homeless.

Does this seem like a fair system?