Rentiers are a very small group that arguably organize resources, they don't do nothing. For instance, it is commonly accepted that the markets that allow for r

Rentiers are a very small group that arguably organize resources, they don't do nothing. For instance, it is commonly accepted that the markets that allow for rentiers to exist far outperform communist and the older king/nobility directed markets and even mercantilist markets. Pensioners are a temporary aberration. Of course we can take care of a fixed and tiny percentage of the population while everything else is growing. The issue is, that we've stopped growing. Population growth in the west stopped long ago. That means that for the coming 20 years or so pensioners will "grow" exponentially (or rather exponentially growing birthrates from 50-60 years ago will get transformed into pensioner growth), whereas the working population will actually shrink. Even in China. In Japan it will crash. And in case you feel like automation will save us ... well, where is it ? Productivity growth stopped in the 80s, along with the introduction of large scale automation. Unless something dramatically changes from now on there automation looks like at best it can temporarily prevent worse than the current situation. And what could change ? Having computers organize things is old hat by now. Having factories, actual production automated ... even older hat. Mines, ... just about the only thing with real economic impact remaining is house building.