It also makes employees wealthier.... Think of all the money you flush down the drain making your car move from home to the office and back again.... Just that alone is easily thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars per year, depending on your vehicle and type of fuel, efficiency, etc.

Everyone wins except the real estate owners and their stakeholders, which, as you astutely pointed out, are the business owners. Rent is a way for them to essentially launder money into their own pockets. They legitimately pay their office rent, and a chunk of that comes back to them in dividends from the land owning company.

It's a club, and you ain't in it.