That's an interesting angle I haven't heard before. Your thesis could be restated as hereditary wealth / rising aristocracy concentrates wealth based on lineag

That's an interesting angle I haven't heard before. Your thesis could be restated as hereditary wealth / rising aristocracy concentrates wealth based on lineage and not meritocracy, thus unlikely to be in the hands of those most able to put it to work effectively. This inefficiency in the market would lead to lower future growth potential. I'm going to ignore the mention of IQ because a) It's largely hereditary so I think it actually runs counter to your argument and b) It's not the best measure for ability to allocate capital effectively in the first place. That seems plausible though. It would superficially make sense to tax that with a wealth or estate tax and put the money into programs that increase social mobility. I say superficially because whenever you tax something you change people's behaviour, like moving their assets into a trust to avoid estate taxes. I think we're seeing this in the US where the states with the highest taxes, California and New York are seeing the highest net emigration of 200K people a year to other states. I wonder if it's related. The US in particular has the lowest social mobility compared to other major Western nations. The American dream is least alive in America in the West. That's a major drag on the future economic potential of the country.