The thing is, if you own all the wealth, you pay yourself "income" effectively through the rent you're taking off the rest of society. The slaveholders I'm sure

The thing is, if you own all the wealth, you pay yourself "income" effectively through the rent you're taking off the rest of society. The slaveholders I'm sure paid more taxes than the slaves. There are layers of indirection => you're rich so you can afford/get your way into an expensive university, you're placed in a position through nepotism, you "rise" to a senior directory of a company, you make X million but all you've really done is take your oligarchy shares. If slaveholding is too extreme consider land-owning, the owner pays more tax than the rentiers, but he has income he's done nothing to achieve. Rentier capitalism is just this with more steps. I'm sitting in an elite company, of the ten people (I'm not one) making serious money, 5/10 are nepotism hires and the others are socially elite who went to (and paid for) top universities.