Before getting to the price of a life, it’s worth noting that almost every human being rents out part of theirs: it’s called work.
When shareholders set up a company, they pool means of production to create products or services (wealth, at any rate), and put humans to work, paying them for their time. That’s a salary.
The idea has been challenged more than once.
It’s one of the foundations of Marxism, in fact: making sure the bourgeoisie2 no longer owns the means of production, and that the proletariat seizes them so that work is better rewarded.
Over the past two decades, the rise of the self-help and financial independence gurus (most of whom are financially independent by selling their advice) has led a lot of people to try to stop selling their time. Which in reality means living off income from assets, whose wealth is created by others.
So the substance has simply moved elsewhere.
But what happens when it’s a question of handing over your whole life?