Rent isn’t theft. It’s payment for a service.

What service does the land speculator provide to the tenant? The landlord doesn't develop the property, that's the builder. The landlord doesn't maintain the property, that's done by contractors. The landlord doesn't secure the property, that's done by the state. The landlord often doesn't even finance the property, as the property is inevitably mortgaged and underwritten by banks one step removed from the title holder.

Quite literally, the only thing landlords do is collect the check and transfer portions of it onward. They are, at best, payment processors. And even this job is routinely outsourced to a third party.

There are benefits to renting.

There are lower institutional barriers to renting than to owning, largely resulting from the artificial shortage of public land and public housing. Rents are the consequence of real estate monopolization and public malinvestment. Once the landlords themselves vanish, the "benefits" of renting vanish with them.

And not all landlords are rich people.

There's an old joke Donald Trump likes to tell, back in the 90s when he was underwater on his personal holdings. He's driving through Lower Manhattan in a limo with his daughter and he points out the window to a homeless man. Then he quips, "I'm $800M poorer than that man". To which his daughter replies, "If that's true why are we in a limo while he's out on the street?"