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Snore. I count 29 instances of the word "inheritance" on this page. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-09-22-forbes-list_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/mone

Snore. I count 29 instances of the word "inheritance" on this page. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-09-22-forbes-list_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-09-22-forbes-list_x.htm Whenever someone wants to attack capitalism, they always seem to attack people born into wealthy families. That has nothing to do with capitalism. Nothing whatsoever. In fact, one of the GREATEST CHANGES to take place with the industrial revolution was the reduction in the prevailance of nepotism due to the importance of technical and managerial skills, rather than clannishness. Clannishness, family preferences, primogeniture, cousin marriages, etc, are all necessary to maintain feudalism, not capitalism. If you really hate capitalism, go straight to the real alternative: Command economy. This is where some brain dead bureaucrat decides who gets wealth based upon adherance to political orthodoxy--which is essentially what the teachers did in the end. Works great with fixed resources like toys. Doesn't work so great when the fields need tilling. [1] EDIT: Should be several higher. They only wrote "WalMart inheritence" once.

anewaccountname 19y ago
If 29/384 got that way purely on inheritance, then inheritance is statistically extremely significant in getting into that 384; the rich don't make up anywhere near 7.5% of the population, but that list is at a minimum 7.5% born rich. Also, as one example, Gates was born filthy rich, I don't the word "inheritance" occurs everywhere on that list where it plays a part.
- dkokelley 19y ago
  That list is irrelevant. The people there are not representative of the entire population. They only represent the top .xx1% and are a very poor sample. What about the people who aren't on the list? There are a lot more of them, and they're still multimillionaires. We have no information about them, nor do we have any information from which we can derive conclusions from. As far as the top billionaires, it is true that many of them were extremely fortunate in life and had some money from birth. Only around 30 of them made their billions that way, the others worked to turn their millions into billions, which still takes a great deal of work (and pure luck). I see this argument going nowhere unless we can agree that everyone who has under $X to start and creates $Y over the course of their lives counts as someone who became successful through capitalism. But I doubt we can agree what the X and Y values should be.
  - wallflower 19y ago
    For those of you who are looking to be wealthy, aim to become an accredited investor by IRS standards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor

anewaccountname 19y ago

If 29/384 got that way purely on inheritance, then inheritance is statistically extremely significant in getting into that 384; the rich don't make up anywhere near 7.5% of the population, but that list is at a minimum 7.5% born rich. Also, as one example, Gates was born filthy rich, I don't the word "inheritance" occurs everywhere on that list where it plays a part.

dkokelley 19y ago
That list is irrelevant. The people there are not representative of the entire population. They only represent the top .xx1% and are a very poor sample. What about the people who aren't on the list? There are a lot more of them, and they're still multimillionaires. We have no information about them, nor do we have any information from which we can derive conclusions from. As far as the top billionaires, it is true that many of them were extremely fortunate in life and had some money from birth. Only around 30 of them made their billions that way, the others worked to turn their millions into billions, which still takes a great deal of work (and pure luck). I see this argument going nowhere unless we can agree that everyone who has under $X to start and creates $Y over the course of their lives counts as someone who became successful through capitalism. But I doubt we can agree what the X and Y values should be.
- wallflower 19y ago
  For those of you who are looking to be wealthy, aim to become an accredited investor by IRS standards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor