Housing and food is essentially pay too, in a way.

What I'm saying is that there are people who get to live off others' work in that system too. It's just a much more just system, because we're basing it off who can vs who can't work, rather than who has money vs who doesn't.

You could also make the case that passive income doesn't necessarily require exploitation. One could work 80 hour weeks for 20 years with the goal of retiring earlier. In effect, that person is doing their future work in advance, and then in one way or another, earns income off it. If you just kept the extra money as cash, it would inflate away.

However, such "fair" passive income wouldn't be 8-10% a year in growth like you can currently get passively long term, it would be in line with inflation, to make it so that your 80 hours of work today are still worth 80 hours of work in 20 years.

I would argue that government bonds (in an actually ethical government, not something like the US...) are pretty close to exploitation-free passive income under the capitalist system. The rate is not high and the government uses it to fund social programs, infrastructure, etc. In return, the extra work you did to make more money, retains its value over time.

But this is just a theoretical way under the capitalist system to get SOME passive income to help you retire with more comfort than the state pension. Unfortunately, since exploitation IS allowed and is much more profitable, this is not actually what most people are doing for passive income.