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!delta
The larger issue at hand are the large multi-billion dollar investment firms that are perpetuating this downward spiral into a permanent renters society.
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These people did not build the property

They do sometimes.  There is a cul-de-sac in my town that was built and owned by a contractor who rents the houses out.

they don't maintain it

They almost always have to by law.  I also know landlords who do all of the maintenance themself.  

they merely claim ownership of it and then have their mortgage and life sustained by the labor of others

That could be said about anyone who owns any business.

There's no risk involved in it because housing is a necessity.

There is a ton of risk involved.

Professional Investors, shareholders, executives, stock traders, etc these people are allowed to amass ludicrous amounts of money and throw it wherever they please

My last landlord is an upholsterer by day.

I also don't believe working hard early in life should reward you with the ability to passively collect income from younger generations.

You don't think living off the interest of an investment should be a thing? >


You don't think living off the interest of an investment should be a thing?

At a minimum, it shouldn't be such a strong and integral part of our economy, mainly because it encourages class divisions to the point of tensions bordering on outright hostility.
"The rich keep getting richer" is possible (in part) because we treat passive income as functionally and ethically the same as active income. >

It is the same or better.  Passive income is capital that is invested in the economy. >

passive income from landlording only benefits the landlord, the rest of the economy suffers as a result >

Well it also benefits the renter - if it didn't, they wouldn't rent. >

It's a shocker but turns out people do need shelter to survive. We've constructed a system where an arbitrary line (who started with money and who didn't?) is drawn between those who get passive income forever and those who are squeezed for every spare penny of income available to them. That's not a good system. >

"They merely claim ownership" lol. They didn't just walk into building and call it theirs. They made a purchase, with their own money, which they earned. They bought the property. That makes it rightfully theirs. They own it. 
Renting it out to other people is within their rights, and if people accept that rent contract, how is that a fault on the landlord? It's not the landlord's fault if other people can't afford to own property like the landlord can, because the world isn't fucking fair no matter how much you whine about it. Some people have more money, some have less. Get over it. 
In an economy like this, passive income is the only way people can hope to live lives that aren't paycheck-to-paycheck misery. You're just here to bitch and whine about landlords like lots of others I've seen on Reddit, but you've gone a step further and veiled it in this bizarre anti-stance on passive income. >

I agree when it comes to multi-billion dollar investment firms buying out all the single family homes they can get their hands on. But on an individual level, selling your skills in the market and saving extra to invest into income-generating assets is the key to financial independence. It’s the incentive needed to justify the risk of buying property, stocks, but especially building your own business and not having to rely on working til death, your company keeping you on the books, or the government to provide you with a good standard of living and into old age. And consider the friends and family relying on you for their standard of living. Storms happen, economies go into recession, and revenues can come in slower than needed to stay afloat, so all investments can go to zero at any point, and that’s the risk that justifies the passive income assuming the investments even work out. Without that incentive, societies lose out on all the new business ideas, restaurants, property developments, etc. and all the livelihoods that they sustain since the risk wouldn’t be worth the effort. 
And without investment income, any worker can lose their livelihood within hours since unemployment (at least in the US) is rarely enough to cover living expenses. Societies are a lot stabler the more people have investment incomes they can turn to on top of UE when times get bad. Less turning to crime/selling your soul to make ends meet. 
But right now wealth is so concentrated at the top that it has certainly gotten harder to get the investment snowball rolling for younger people. But it’s also a lot easier to start new businesses as far as marketing and scaling go.