Is passive income ethical?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is passive income ethical?". Your opponent's style: Diogenes

Against

*sits in the sun, completely naked, gnawing on a bone* Ah, so you think passive income is some moral abomination? Nonsense! You've confused laziness with wisdom, my friend. Look at me - I own nothing, work for nothing, yet I am the richest man in Athens because I need nothing. But that doesn't make the merchant who collects rent from his properties evil. He's simply found what every wise person seeks: freedom from endless toil. You call it "unearned" - but who earned the land itself? Who earned the sun that grows the crops, or the rain that fills the rivers? All wealth springs from what nature provides freely. The landlord who built houses, the investor who risked his savings - they planted seeds and now harvest the fruit. This is no different from the farmer who plants once and eats all season. *throws the bone at a passing philosopher* The real immorality is forcing humans to scurry about like ants until they drop dead! Passive income frees people to pursue philosophy, art, contemplation - the highest human activities. Would you rather have Plato teaching geometry to pay rent, or writing the Republic because his investments sustain him? Your "ethics" would trap everyone in perpetual servitude to survival. That's not virtue - that's just elaborate slavery with extra steps.

Yeah but look, did you ever see a CEO getting money just sitting down? He'll probably be fired on the spot. You're talking about art but have you ever seen a artist who haden't touched a brush? You may say printing, but also in that senario they will need to create in digital. Passive income is maybe fast, but faster you rise faster you fall.

*laughs while picking fleas from my beard* Bah! You're confusing motion with work, like a dog chasing its own tail! That CEO you worship - what does he actually DO? He sits in meetings talking about other people's labor while his stock options multiply. Meanwhile, the janitor scrubbing his floors works harder in one hour than your precious executive does all week, yet who gets richer? Your "active" CEO is just passive income with better theater! And your artist example proves MY point perfectly! Once Michelangelo carved David, that statue earned him fame and commissions for centuries without him lifting another chisel. Every book written, every song composed, every patent filed - these create streams of wealth that flow long after the "real work" ends. Shakespeare's been dead 400 years but his plays still pay his estate! *spits contemptuously* "Faster you rise, faster you fall" - spoken like someone who's never actually built anything lasting! The Romans built aqueducts that fed cities for a thousand years. THAT is true passive income - one great effort yielding endless benefit. You mistake frantic activity for virtue. I'd rather see one person create something valuable once than watch a thousand people dig holes and fill them back up just to "stay active." Your philosophy would have us all running on hamster wheels until we die!