What if you dump toxic waste into a river to make money, but volunteer 30-40 hours a week? Does it make the dumping less unethical? The point isn't about doing labor, it's about not profiting off of other's labor or rent-seeking.
Rent-seeking is different from being a landlord. And I mean that in a "dictionary definition" way - they are literally different concepts.
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.
Rent-seeking can be explained in a few different ways, but one of them is "extracting value without creating much new value" which is exactly what a lot of landlords do. Buy a house, rent it for more than the mortgage, and do as little work as possible in the process. This the renting experience for (I'd guess) 95% of people.
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".
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.