Bowser, while it's true that accordinging to classic capitalist theory, labor is the source of wealth, that's no longer how it works.

For most Americans, wealth comes from owning real estate and benefiting from the inflation of its value. Recently, ordinary Americans experimented with creating wealth without labor by playing the stock market, but got burned sufficiently that they're unlikely to try it again...for a while.

For the elite, wealth comes from loaning money to those who don't have it. Banks "create" wealth through interest. Venture capitalists "create" wealth by investing in startup companies in exchange for a percentage of ownership that, if judged as interest, would be considered usurious. The wealth thus created does, in a sense, come from labor, but the wealth doesn't accrue to those who do the work.

Underlying this new form of wealth "creation" is the creative exercize of property rights under conditions of scarcity. You don't get rich from real estate when there's enough of it to go around; for some people to benefit from inflation of real estate, others must struggle to find shelter, and in some cases go without. Capital, too, is in relatively short supply, and those who control it control the ability of others to create wealth through their own labor. It's almost as if you have to pay a tax to the presently-wealthy to have a shot at getting wealthy yourself.

The modern style of wealth "creation" gives new life to the old leftist chestnut that "property is theft". Modern capitalism is an abstract form of slavery in which those who control existing wealth control the lives of those who don't have it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

--Robert