To me inherited wealth is just as perverse as nepotism, monarchies, blood rights etc. For example, should the president's son, because he's the son of the pres

To me inherited wealth is just as perverse as nepotism, monarchies, blood rights etc. For example, should the president's son, because he's the son of the president, have a special citizenship that allows him a $1m income for the rest of his life? And a Presidential health care card that affords him the base care. And a free pass to any ivy league university, just by virtue of him being the son of the president? We say no, because we believe in a meritocracy. Through hard work and merit, i.e., your contributions to the rest of society and your hard work, you're afforded access to good schools, good jobs and an income that affords you good care. But if you inherit $10m, you can skip all that. At a normal 5% ROI, you can live the rest of your life on a $500k salary. You can get access to the best tutors, best schools, best care, and perpetuate your success to the next generation. (the idea of social reproduction). Money buys you tons of opportunities, access and leisure. By inheriting money, you thereby inherit opportunity, access and leisure. We don't accept that if opportunities (e.g. jobs) or access (e.g. special care) is handed down through a corrupt political system, but we do accept it when it happens indirectly when money is handed down, and this money in turn buys opportunities and access. Of course there's a balancing act. We want fairness in opportunity and access, but we also want to provide for our kids and leave them better of them your parents left you. We want to set-up our kids with a minimum safety net, and sometimes we want to leave our kids a family business we hand down generation after generation. Somewhere in between there's a level of distributive justice that makes sense, where a minimum amount of inheritance is exempted, after which the remainder is taxed heavily.