The return of the rich over the last 40 years has been the return of the active rentier, including the working rich who are in positions of power such that they can siphon off wealth produced by others, whether in their own organisations or elsewhere. Rentier shares of national income increased significantly in most industrialised countries since the 1980s.

In the UK, the trend has been particularly marked in the property sector. In the 2000s, lending to the commercial property sector grew by 3.5 times (this includes the development, buying, selling and renting of property but excludes the construction of new buildings) while lending to all non-finance sectors (including construction) lagged slightly behind growth of GDP. In the process, lending to commercial property rose from being 60% less than lending to productive sectors to being 50% more. Lending by the later-to-fail RBS and Lloyds TSB accounted for half of this. This fuelled a commercial property bubble: after the financial crisis property values plummeted, putting the loans against them at risk. By 2007, 79% of British bank lending was on property (houses and businesses) and to other financial institutions for trading – particularly on derivatives based on property loans. From 1996 to 2008, lending to businesses for productive investment declined. When the bubble burst in 2008, commercial property prices fell by 26.4%.

In 2006, according to the Office of National Statistics, the biggest contribution to economic growth over the previous 15 years had come from the letting of dwellings, where the ‘value’ supposedly ‘created’ had risen by 120%, to reach £45 billion per year. Rentiers mistake wealth extraction for wealth creation: as the Guardian journalist Patrick Collinson put it: