The money that various people are able to make such as per their labor, or through business profit, or by virtue of being a rentier, is each a very different way of money so being made. For a very significant amount of people, they earn their keep, by laboring at a given job, and receive the wages so agreed upon, whether or not such is an actual reflection of the true worth of the labor so having been done, or is even fair. As for the profit that a given organization makes, the controlling entity so making that money has risked their capital in order to make that profit, as well as often additionally providing their own personal labor to do so, of which, for some organizations this works out very well, whereas for others, not so much. Then there is the rentier, of which, rentier is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a person who lives on income from property or securities.” Some very good examples of a rentier would be those that live off of their investments in equities, through equity appreciation and/or dividends; as well as those that rent out property that they own, be it, commercial or residential, at a rate that provides them with a profit; or those that make loans of their capital to people and organizations for a price, such as in banks or their equivalency.
To a very large extent, those that labor for their wages, are respected for their work ethic, and to the degree that they are able to make a good living from such, this is to their credit. As for those that make their money through the profit of their particular business, the respect for such is dependent upon a lot of factors, such as fair labor wages, fair opportunity and growth for those that are part of that organization, as well as that company’s overall willingness to pay their fair share of taxes. Then there are those rentiers, of which, in short, they make their money by virtue of having money, of which many a rentier has little interest in having to actually personally labor for it, and so, no matter how they spin it, rentiers predominantly make their money, passively, which seems quasi-respectable, at best.
All those that labor for their wages are working. Those that are in a business to make a profit, typically also are working and working hard, along with having to successfully deal with the stress of the ups and downs of the competitive business world. Rentiers on the other hand, usually aren’t interested in working, for all they really want to have happen is to have the money that they currently have, create more money for them; and in order for that to happen, this signifies that somebody or some entity has to trade their money or something of value for what the rentier so has, of which the difference between the true value of what the rentier owns and what it thereby is sold or rented for, is the profit that the rentier so gets, simply for having ownership of it.
Typical laborers find themselves in a trying position in order to negotiate themselves a fair wage; while those that own businesses are constrained by market forces and competitors as to how much money that they can make; whereas, rentiers have something of material value, desired or needed by others, placing them in the catbird seat, to press their advantage, and thereby to get what they really want without actually having to dirty their hands by toiling for it.