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I'm not a parent (also not the person you're directly responding to), but I think one day I might be. Right now we're encouraging the productive people to pass

I'm not a parent (also not the person you're directly responding to), but I think one day I might be. Right now we're encouraging the productive people to pass on their assets, but not the ability to create wealth - which would be better for society, and (totally my own subjective opinion) will lead to a better life for the child as well. There's still the option of living a comfortable life being totally unproductive - but why let that option waste an unnecessary amount of our society's assets? This would be an extremely strong move by the government, you're right, but I think most people would be behind it, especially since it would affect less than a percent of the population. We're not headed down that path currently, but I thought it was an idea worth sharing.

ericd 9y ago
>Right now we're encouraging the productive people to pass on their assets, but not the ability to create wealth - which would be better for society, and (totally my own subjective opinion) will lead to a better life for the child as well. Most productive parents are already highly incentivized to not see their children become totally unproductive wastrels, because the culture that made them productive taught them to value productivity, and good parents typically want to see their children instilled with what they see as good values. I don't think the government needs to do much more there. > There's still the option of living a comfortable life being totally unproductive - but why let that option waste an unnecessary amount of our society's assets? There are a couple things to unpack here. First off, wealthy peoples' wealth doesn't just sit in a cave, it's almost always ~100% invested in productive ventures. Even sitting in the bank, the bank is using it to write loans to people and businesses to do things with. The other thing is that it's part of our very basic social compact that peoples' property is theirs and their family's, not the society's, and only in very limited circumstances can the government/society seize that property for the use of the group.

ericd 9y ago

>Right now we're encouraging the productive people to pass on their assets, but not the ability to create wealth - which would be better for society, and (totally my own subjective opinion) will lead to a better life for the child as well. Most productive parents are already highly incentivized to not see their children become totally unproductive wastrels, because the culture that made them productive taught them to value productivity, and good parents typically want to see their children instilled with what they see as good values. I don't think the government needs to do much more there. > There's still the option of living a comfortable life being totally unproductive - but why let that option waste an unnecessary amount of our society's assets? There are a couple things to unpack here. First off, wealthy peoples' wealth doesn't just sit in a cave, it's almost always ~100% invested in productive ventures. Even sitting in the bank, the bank is using it to write loans to people and businesses to do things with. The other thing is that it's part of our very basic social compact that peoples' property is theirs and their family's, not the society's, and only in very limited circumstances can the government/society seize that property for the use of the group.