> Sounds great, except when too many people do it.

It's a self regulating system. The more money that flows into investments, the lower returns will be pushed, causing more money to be required to support yourself off of investments alone.

It isn't that simple at all. When the returns are pushed lower, the means of extracting wealth from low class workers get more brutal. Suffering builds up at the bottom because of decisions at the top, and decision makers don't care because their experiences are entirely disconnected.

Isn't anything bad by definition when "too many" people do it?

This is also morally suspect. You're putting extra load (taxes if anything) on people while you're not working.

If you think you can repay this cost to society with volunteer work or otherwise, this might work.

Huh? You contribute with your assets. People get to use your stuff in exchange for giving you stuff.

Lending isn't productive in and of itself. There is a nice gradient stretching from freeloading rent-seeker to visionary/socially responsible investor. Not seeing the difference and condemning the former is a problem.

The difference is in how many other people get fucked along the way as the investor gets their return.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"

I thought we had got past the idea of collectivism, it just doesn't work.

Little is more naive than the broad claim "collectivism doesn't work" because the USSR and other states tried some form of it and failed.

Even if you are willing to massively oversimplify things and look at the cold war and all the real-politik business of the last century as a fair contest between the ideas of collectivism and capitalism, "which system wins in a war" is not exactly the same thing as "which system maximizes prosperity." Nor are we actually limited to picking between the two.

He already played more than other people will ever pay in taxes in their lifetime, he does not have obligation to society.