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Founding vs. Inheriting
- injidup 5y agoStopped reading when ... Bitcoin
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- culturestate 5y ago1729 is Balaji's crypto newsletter, so you were bound to get there eventually.
- cblconfederate 5y agowhy did you comment then?
- CRConrad 5y agoPerhaps as a heads-up to those of us who now know not to bother clicking through. Thank you, GP!
- CyberRabbi 5y agoI want to live in a society where I can found an institution, get rich, and then I can rest assured that my descendants will inherit and benefit from the wealth I made. Otherwise what’s the point?
- js8 5y agoThat's called feudalism.
- CyberRabbi 5y agoFeudalism involves using force to take and hoard finite resources such as land from others without recompense. I’m describing a society where everyone is free to create wealth from their labor and is also free to have their descendants inherit and benefit from the wealth they created from their labor.
- js8 5y ago> create wealth from their labor I am not sure what you mean by lasting wealth created by labor. Can you give some example? You mean "intellectual property"? You want society broadly based on that?
- unishark 5y agoIP rules restrict others' production or ownership. Wealth is owning of the products themselves. You don't become less wealthy in that sense if another person makes a copy of something you own.
- js8 5y agoNot all of them, copyright doesn't. In any case, aside from something like a Minecraft world, I don't really see how you can "create wealth" without taking from someone else first. Can you provide a positive example?
- unishark 5y agoWhat is included in "taking from someone"? Am I allowed to purchase or gather cheap resources and make much more valuable products after applying skilled labor?
- js8 5y agoYes. But I am not sure how you transfer the fruits of this labor to your descendants, so they would benefit from it. Every property needs maintenance, and "being rich" (as OP said), or even middle-class, means to have enough property that you need to hire somebody (at least ocassionally) to maintain it. Also OP talked about building an institution, which presumably means that there are other people involved. Unless he meant something like building a worker cooperative, I feel like in the arrangement he envisioned for his descendants, it will be other people working for them, providing them with their labor. I don't see that much different from feudal arrangements.
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- JohnJamesRambo 5y agoI’ve been reading The Millionaire Next Door and surprisingly few descendants stay rich. By fourth generation the wealth is completely destroyed. Likely because each generation didn’t have to work as hard and value the money. Of course there are exceptions, but this was what their data said. Also I think only 20% of millionaires in USA inherited it, which really surprised me.
- TacticalCoder 5y ago> By fourth generation the wealth is completely destroyed. It doesn't change the fact that free people, living in a free country, should be free to give their wealth to whomever they please, including their children.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoNot if there are social, political, and ecological costs to other people. What makes you think that "free" should only ever benefit you, and everyone else's "free" is irrelevant?
- CRConrad 5y ago> ...free people, living in a free country, should be free to give their wealth to whomever they please, including their children. Sure. And those children should be as free as anyone else to pay the appropriate tax rate on that category of income. (Given that it's a sudden unearned windfall, a pretty high rate seems quite equitable.)
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- cblconfederate 5y agoIf everyone wants that however, it seems like an unsustainable game to play. > Otherwise what’s the point? The answer to that question defines a society. For most of recent history that was true with the exception of communist countries and many other interludes.
- quietbritishjim 5y agoOut of interest, because this has a substantial effect on the meaning of your comment: Do you literally mean all your descendents? E.g. in 200 years there will be 100ish people still substantially benefitting from your wealth? That's how your post reads and is probably how most people would interpret it but I suspect it may not be what you meant. Or do you just mean your wealth just benefits your immediate descendants? (What you've written would be a very odd way to say that because most people would describe those people as "my children".) Obviously there would still be an indirect effect all the way down e.g. your grandchildren would probably get a better education which would let them earn more for themselves, etc., but that would fade out eventually through the generations.
- zeckalpha 5y agoIf it is well managed and a safe withdrawal rate is maintained, it very well could go to all descendants.
- altusbrown 5y agoGood luck though when the person who learned how to be an assassin/shark and was able to build and maintain the wealth has handed it off to their kids (or grandkids) who probably never had much contact with them (what with all the assassin/sharkiness), and are now trying to judge well managed and safe from what they were exposed to as children. Which was probably massive wealth, and people who aren't always scamming you (because the filtering happened off screen). Especially since you either have to pick someone (or a small group) from the set to judge, or have to deal with an ever increasing and ever more distant from the original wealthbuilding set of decision makers. Definitely possible to do, but very, very, very unlikely and rare (based on clear examples around us).
- CyberRabbi 5y agoI haven’t fully considered what the best way is to ensure my dynasty but I imagine that my first born male son should inherit the lion’s share of the wealth. So no, in practice it probably wouldn’t be all my descendants, just my direct male line.
- nicoburns 5y agoWhy do you only care about your descendants, and not anyone else. We could create a society where everyone in the next generation benefits from the wealth that everyone in the current generation creates. Is that not a much more worthy goal to strive for?
- anotha1 5y agoMuch. The parent comment reads like a mix of severely lacking empathy and selfish grandiosity. This guy would probably also agree he should have 500+ kids to spread his blessed seed to the world.
- listenallyall 5y agoRight, because confiscating wealth from those that earned it, has worked so well across the civilizations and societies that tried it.
- anoncake 5y agoIt has and it's called taxation. And taxing people who have not earned their wealth, using inheritance taxes, is even better.
- listenallyall 5y agoThe United States taxes its citizens in many, many ways... income tax, payroll tax, capital gains tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, liquor tax, inheritance tax, many more. If taxation "benefits" all future citizens, as described by the OP above, then the U.S. would cheer on its billionaires, they would be the heroes of all children because they would be providing almost all of the benefits! Funny that it doesn't work like that in real life...
- anoncake 5y agoNo, billionaires didn't earn their wealth. And paying your taxes is the bare minimum, it doesn't make you a hero.
- rrivers 5y agoDynastic wealth transfer is extremely inequitable. While everyone defines their own meaning, to frame the human condition as the process of generating excess capital is a diminishment of life and experience.
- CyberRabbi 5y ago> to frame the human condition as the process of generating excess capital is a diminishment of life and experience. Yes I completely agree. Accumulating wealth should not be the end goal of the human experience. It’s just the means by which we ensure the continued health and prosperity of our families and loved ones.
- mustafa_pasi 5y agoI cannot believe this comment is grayed out. There is really not point in accumulating wealth if you cannot pass it down. And maybe consider that you might have been lucky in your life and your children or your grandchild won't be. So don't think, "I did it easily, so they can as well".
- k__ 5y agoDon't know, but maybe accumulating wealth isn't what life should be about?
- mustafa_pasi 5y agoWe are on HN, so I just assumed everyone on here was interested and seeking out way to accumulate more wealth than the average working professional. Of course not everyone has to have that mindset. But if you do have that mindset, then I find it hard to understand why you'd be against inheritance.
- k__ 5y agoYou could have the mindset that your wealth helps everyone and not just those who happen to be your offspring.
- klyrs 5y ago> We are on HN, so I just assumed everyone on here was interested and seeking out way to accumulate more wealth than the average working professional. You may be surprised to learn that many hackers are passionate about tech, and see the handling of money as a dreadful necessity of life that brings as much joy as wiping one's ass. The fact that tech can be lucrative has attracted a bunch of folks to tech, who are only in it for the money. HN does skew towards the latter, but it certainly isn't everyone here
- djbebs 5y agoThe good thing about being able to do it, is that you're not obligated to do it. I'd you dont want to pass on anything to your children, you're welcome to spend it all however you see fit. Allowing people to pass it on to whomever they like won't change your ability to do that.
- gumby 5y agoYour position seems bizarre to me. I want to live in a society where I can do what I like (which in my case involves founding institutions that help propagate things important to me like free software, and als making plenty of money). My descendants? Some upbringing and a good education and then they are on their own. What would be the point of giving them some money or a company? Some sentimental knickknacks: fine. I consider inheritance anti-democratic and not part of the kind of society I would like.
- CyberRabbi 5y ago> I consider inheritance anti-democratic I consider restricting the ability for people to provide inheritance to their children by force of state anti-democratic.
- gumby 5y agoAre you objecting to something someone suggested? Without the force of state or a private army it’s pretty difficult for anyone to leave anything to someone after they kick the bucket.
- CyberRabbi 5y agoProtecting someone’s property is not the same as taking away someone’s right to their property. When the state does the former, it is a liberal state, when it does the latter it is a tyrannical state. If you aren’t suggesting the state take away my ability to provide inheritance to my descendants, then what is the function of calling inheritance anti-democratic? Are you suggesting that a true democracy does not allow individuals to leave inheritance to their descendants?
- userulluipeste 5y ago"what is the function of calling inheritance anti-democratic?" As I understand it, legacy can be (and definitely is) used as a tool for wielding power, which (democracy wise) gets naturally viewed as a problem. That's not to say that inheritance is bad or that it causes more harm than good. Personally, I think that denying inheritance will take away an important working drive for many people, which in turn will invite in the said people a cool off after achieving certain level of personal comfort. All that while the society at large would benefit more from the same people to fulfill their working potential than from diminishing whatever vector of risk to the optimal function of democracy. Also, whatever much or little one may achieve in life, at one point it must be passed to someone else, due to our mortal nature. I'd rather let the owners have control over how and whom they pass that to (i.e. to someone they know and maybe even had the chance to personally educate), as that to me seems the best setting for having things built in the long run.
- mjfl 5y agoAs someone who grew up in middle class new england without any sort of inheritance, now living in southern california where there is seemingly an ethnic caste system in place, I think this article is a little circlejerky. People move to california for the weather.