5 ms·

Bank of Mum and Dad: why we all now live in an 'inheritocracy' (2024)

26 points by herbertl 2y ago

deadbabe 2y ago
It’s not inheritocracy, it’s family units working as intended. In America we’ve had this fantasy of rugged individualism where you could just say fuck you to mom and dad and your elders and just go off and do your own thing and prove everyone wrong and be wildly successful and owe nobody anything. That dream should now be thoroughly eradicated. It makes people way too selfish and it’s not good for society as a whole. We must see life as a team effort.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  The keyword there is could. America is the land of opportunity, the Declaration of Independence calls the pursuit of happiness an unalienable right. Nowhere is happiness or success promised or guaranteed. You have an opportunity, the same (equal) opportunity as everyone else; whether you will succeed is an entirely different matter and can come down to sheer dumb luck. Freedom is power, power is responsibility, responsibility is hard. Obtaining success is hard, living in a free society and country is hard, but the fruits are unparalleled if you win.
  - fnordpiglet 2y ago
    I think by in large the other side is redemption and second chances. The stereotypical American parent (which isn’t a rule by far) helps their kids launch - and is there to catch them and relaunch them when it doesn’t work out. Many parents don’t live up to this but that’s what I grew up believing the goal is. It’s a two way thing - the parents help to their means and the kids strive to their ability. Neither work out sometimes as adequate, and that’s when we take care of family.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  I'm not sure who's "intending" this, certainly not me. We should be working towards a society where "who your father is" isn't the strongest predictor of one's standard of living. This isn't about saying fuck you to your parents, it's about working towards a level playing field, where the winners and losers aren't pre-determined by who their families are.
  - deadbabe 2y ago
    So family members should not be allowed to help each other is what you’re basically saying. Doesn’t that sound insane?
    - shinryuu 2y ago
      That's not what he's saying. He is saying that your father and my father shouldn't be supremely unequal. Ie your father being a CEO and earning 10s of millions every year and my father working a product manager role at a small company. Very often there is a huge factor of pay difference between roles like these.
      - wink 2y ago
        Let's ignore CEOs. In my parents' generation it would not be absurd to buy a small house here to raise the kids in, with a single parent working and the other caring for the kids, even if you don't have a well-paying job. A decent job will do. Compare to now, double income, no kids, both earning above average wages. Buying a house before you are 50, or at all? Forget it. Just that those people who inherited the house now basically have enough to buy 2 houses out somewhere on the countryside if they decide to move.
      - deadbabe 2y ago
        What if the CEO wants to make 10s of millions to ensure he can support his family for generations to come??
    - ericyd 2y ago
      Not sure if you're trolling but otherwise genuinely perplexed by how you could draw this conclusion from the above post.
      - deadbabe 2y ago
        I think it’s pretty clear, a system where a family can’t guarantee their offsprings success is one where the family is unable to do anything to improve their children’s fates.
yieldcrv 2y ago
Play the cards you’re dealt. For everyone that had some obstacles removed that made it easier to apply themselves, there are dozens of other people with the same privilege that didnt apply themselves at all. For everyone that is told to “check their privilege” there are dozens of other people that do check, and realize they weren’t using nearly enough of it, more vastly accelerating inequalities as their previously humble integration into society was considered to be in vain.
ty6853 2y ago
Especially so with land. My ancestors that came to America just claimed homestead land or bought it for a song and everyone back to a couple generations back just used what was passed on. The boomers sold off the land and I started the way my Nth great grandparents did with fuck all, except after boomers passed a gazillion regulations to stop anyone else from building the inherited properties they sold off. I spent decades getting back to square one including having to take raw desert land to a house with my bare hands, which was sabotaged at every step by codes zoning and licensing.
- fnordpiglet 2y ago
  In my family history more or less every generation had to acquire their wealth simply because there was more than one child. It’s not like every child’s family all crowded into some generational family home. Given branching since my family first came to America 150 or so years ago there would be nearly a thousand children squeezed into a 1200sqft 150 year old house. By quirk of fate I ended up moving across the country about 2 miles away from that house. I’m not sure when it left the families control but my relatives are spread over the entire country, and every one of us worked hard and bought our homes. Most of the family homes when the parents die have ended up being sold because the kids left to college and careers and their own homes. Very few homes physically stay with a family branch, especially because the estate is shared and a home isn’t easily divisible. I’m sorry you feel ripped off and I have seen a lot of this mentality on HN over the years - that somehow we are entitled to own property and it’s our ancestors that deprived us, and in current times safety codes and zoning drove the nail in. My generation - gen x - had no illusions we would get jack shit from anyone. I know I never did. But I bought my first home as a total junk fixer upper far from anything and commuted a lot and fixed it by myself into a nice place to live, sold it and moved into a tiny dilapidated studio in an unfashionable part of Brooklyn, committed a lot and fixed it by myself into a nice place to live, etc etc. Now I have a place that’s quite nice due to luck in my life and career and a lot of living in crappy places and fixing them up, saving 80% of my take home to invest, etc. I hope my daughter doesn’t have to work and struggle as hard as I did, but I never blamed my family for not giving me everything on a silver platter and I’ll never understand people that do. Even if my life hadn’t been so lucky and I was living in a crappy apartment, the idea of blaming my parents for not giving me an easy path would never occur to me, and I suspect that’s the case for most people of my generation.
stevage 2y ago
"Inheritocracy" is a complicated way of saying "class system".
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Or is it a subversive way of saying a supportive nuclear or extended family that invests and takes care of subsequent generations is one of the success paths?
  - stevage 2y ago
    And if you are not born into a family that can "invest and take care of", too bad.
    - readthenotes1 2y ago
      Yeah--and that's the trouble. To kickstart things, apparently you have to follow the "success sequence" (get high school diploma, get job, get married, then have kids), but if your society, peers, and home life make that a difficult struggle, then what could we expect?
thekoma 2y ago
What kind of capitalism-apologist hot take on parents/families caring for the well-being of their children/members is this? Surely the world is not frequent with Tom-like Oxford-educated actors feeling bad about how good they have it. If some people arrived to the conclusion that they don't have to work because their parents provide for them, then I would argue their parents have failed them in other ways, but not because of what they provided. Should we decide on a different social contracts where people return things when they die? Sure. But start with the wealthiest please.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >But start with the wealthiest please. (Very) wealthy families already face stiff inheritance and/or estate taxes at both Federal and State levels. Important note, most middle class and all lower class families and individuals will never face inheritance/estate taxes.
  - thekoma 2y ago
    I understand your point and thank you for raising it. The article mainly discussed the UK where a similar steep 40% estate inheritance tax exists for values above a certain threshold. There is also the 7 year rule that completely avoids inheritance tax. Elsewhere in Europe the situation is not as "progressive" and it's more frequent to face inheritance taxes. At the same time, it feels like there are many loopholes around these for the truly wealthy. Though, the perspective of the article reads like it's accusative of upper middle class families (and not higher).
  - mattnewton 2y ago
    Minor note, on the federal level and most states, the “estate” is taxed, not the inheritance which has some subtle differences and loopholes. Also, very very wealthy families can pass much of their wealth through family office funds, blind trusts and company share transfers while living, that are taxed differently. Between the very high caps before an estate tax is used and the loopholes, extremely few dollars are taxed this way. https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-many-people-pay-estate-tax https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-many-people-pa...
robbiewxyz 2y ago
This is, in a significant part, the flip side of the housing crisis coin. Some of these mums and dads saved up but many, many more of them grew their wealth alongside their home values. Zoning policy, building regulations, and interest rates are a massive gate guarding generational wealth, for better or worse. Having personally suffered a lot for my parents poverty and homelessness, I have my biases, but then again don't we all.
- ericyd 2y ago
  I recently read a piece of local news on housing policies (Austin, TX) and the journalist made the observation that affordable housing is inevitably tied to reducing property values, which is a major source of wealth for older generations. It made me realize why some folks would be against zoning changes and other pro-housing policies, because it might actually impact their personal wealth. I don't know why I never correlated the two before.
BLKNSLVR 2y ago
Tangential point: With two kids, my wife and I still need one or other of our parents to ferry the kids back and forth to school and sports at various, sometimes regular, times. We're lucky / privileged enough to have both sets of parents and one bro/sis in-law all within a 15 minute drive. My MIL is ferrying one or other of her grandkids somewhere at least twice a week. Truly, these kids have been raised by the village / extended family. I had a (just lovely person) colleague who was a relatively recent migrant from Malaysia who had three kids, and her husband also worked and relatively long hours. They had no familial support network and I don't know how she / they managed. (everyone manages their own situation, it's just more gets sacrified, but you know what I mean). Family roots make a huge difference in not just money, but time (and availability), and yes it's an immense privilege to have that support network available - but it feels like a different kind of privilege to that of pure monetary support or the kind of privilege that breeds arrogance, corruption, and superiority complexes. It's also a privilege that I am actually looking forward to having the opportunity to provide to my children.
- ty6853 2y ago
  Immigrants survive because their children have more independence. In one karen helicopter parent town I had police called on me because my child was crying so a law must have been broken. They looked up my license, saw I came from <Immigrants dominant city>. They called my city and asked if the child was kidnapped and were essentially told to fuck off by my hometown police. I later got the body cam and these pathetic beasts were shocked my local police would not entertain their claims or even really give them the time of day as it were. So you can see the difference -- in karentown you must shuttle the smiling children everywhere or have them taken by CPS because God forbid they bike to a playground and entertain themselves. Meanwhile in immigrant town no one is entertaining even fraudulent kidnapping claims.
smitty1e 2y ago
> Or have I just fed you a “working-class done good” tale, because that’s how I attempt to justify my own exceedingly privileged position? Oh just get over yourself with the materialism-breeding-guilt nonsense. Live modestly; eschew debt; raise a family; find joy. The emphasis on "moi" and "muh stuff" is the bugaboo here.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

26 points by herbertl 2y ago

It’s not inheritocracy, it’s family units working as intended. In America we’ve had this fantasy of rugged individualism where you could just say fuck you to mom and dad and your elders and just go off and do your own thing and prove everyone wrong and be wildly successful and owe nobody anything. That dream should now be thoroughly eradicated. It makes people way too selfish and it’s not good for society as a whole. We must see life as a team effort.

Dalewyn 2y ago
The keyword there is could. America is the land of opportunity, the Declaration of Independence calls the pursuit of happiness an unalienable right. Nowhere is happiness or success promised or guaranteed. You have an opportunity, the same (equal) opportunity as everyone else; whether you will succeed is an entirely different matter and can come down to sheer dumb luck. Freedom is power, power is responsibility, responsibility is hard. Obtaining success is hard, living in a free society and country is hard, but the fruits are unparalleled if you win.
- fnordpiglet 2y ago
  I think by in large the other side is redemption and second chances. The stereotypical American parent (which isn’t a rule by far) helps their kids launch - and is there to catch them and relaunch them when it doesn’t work out. Many parents don’t live up to this but that’s what I grew up believing the goal is. It’s a two way thing - the parents help to their means and the kids strive to their ability. Neither work out sometimes as adequate, and that’s when we take care of family.
ryandrake 2y ago
I'm not sure who's "intending" this, certainly not me. We should be working towards a society where "who your father is" isn't the strongest predictor of one's standard of living. This isn't about saying fuck you to your parents, it's about working towards a level playing field, where the winners and losers aren't pre-determined by who their families are.
- deadbabe 2y ago
  So family members should not be allowed to help each other is what you’re basically saying. Doesn’t that sound insane?
  - shinryuu 2y ago
    That's not what he's saying. He is saying that your father and my father shouldn't be supremely unequal. Ie your father being a CEO and earning 10s of millions every year and my father working a product manager role at a small company. Very often there is a huge factor of pay difference between roles like these.
    - wink 2y ago
      Let's ignore CEOs. In my parents' generation it would not be absurd to buy a small house here to raise the kids in, with a single parent working and the other caring for the kids, even if you don't have a well-paying job. A decent job will do. Compare to now, double income, no kids, both earning above average wages. Buying a house before you are 50, or at all? Forget it. Just that those people who inherited the house now basically have enough to buy 2 houses out somewhere on the countryside if they decide to move.
    - deadbabe 2y ago
      What if the CEO wants to make 10s of millions to ensure he can support his family for generations to come??
  - ericyd 2y ago
    Not sure if you're trolling but otherwise genuinely perplexed by how you could draw this conclusion from the above post.
    - deadbabe 2y ago
      I think it’s pretty clear, a system where a family can’t guarantee their offsprings success is one where the family is unable to do anything to improve their children’s fates.

yieldcrv 2y ago

Play the cards you’re dealt. For everyone that had some obstacles removed that made it easier to apply themselves, there are dozens of other people with the same privilege that didnt apply themselves at all. For everyone that is told to “check their privilege” there are dozens of other people that do check, and realize they weren’t using nearly enough of it, more vastly accelerating inequalities as their previously humble integration into society was considered to be in vain.

ty6853 2y ago

Especially so with land. My ancestors that came to America just claimed homestead land or bought it for a song and everyone back to a couple generations back just used what was passed on. The boomers sold off the land and I started the way my Nth great grandparents did with fuck all, except after boomers passed a gazillion regulations to stop anyone else from building the inherited properties they sold off. I spent decades getting back to square one including having to take raw desert land to a house with my bare hands, which was sabotaged at every step by codes zoning and licensing.

fnordpiglet 2y ago
In my family history more or less every generation had to acquire their wealth simply because there was more than one child. It’s not like every child’s family all crowded into some generational family home. Given branching since my family first came to America 150 or so years ago there would be nearly a thousand children squeezed into a 1200sqft 150 year old house. By quirk of fate I ended up moving across the country about 2 miles away from that house. I’m not sure when it left the families control but my relatives are spread over the entire country, and every one of us worked hard and bought our homes. Most of the family homes when the parents die have ended up being sold because the kids left to college and careers and their own homes. Very few homes physically stay with a family branch, especially because the estate is shared and a home isn’t easily divisible. I’m sorry you feel ripped off and I have seen a lot of this mentality on HN over the years - that somehow we are entitled to own property and it’s our ancestors that deprived us, and in current times safety codes and zoning drove the nail in. My generation - gen x - had no illusions we would get jack shit from anyone. I know I never did. But I bought my first home as a total junk fixer upper far from anything and commuted a lot and fixed it by myself into a nice place to live, sold it and moved into a tiny dilapidated studio in an unfashionable part of Brooklyn, committed a lot and fixed it by myself into a nice place to live, etc etc. Now I have a place that’s quite nice due to luck in my life and career and a lot of living in crappy places and fixing them up, saving 80% of my take home to invest, etc. I hope my daughter doesn’t have to work and struggle as hard as I did, but I never blamed my family for not giving me everything on a silver platter and I’ll never understand people that do. Even if my life hadn’t been so lucky and I was living in a crappy apartment, the idea of blaming my parents for not giving me an easy path would never occur to me, and I suspect that’s the case for most people of my generation.

stevage 2y ago

"Inheritocracy" is a complicated way of saying "class system".

readthenotes1 2y ago
Or is it a subversive way of saying a supportive nuclear or extended family that invests and takes care of subsequent generations is one of the success paths?
- stevage 2y ago
  And if you are not born into a family that can "invest and take care of", too bad.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    Yeah--and that's the trouble. To kickstart things, apparently you have to follow the "success sequence" (get high school diploma, get job, get married, then have kids), but if your society, peers, and home life make that a difficult struggle, then what could we expect?

thekoma 2y ago

What kind of capitalism-apologist hot take on parents/families caring for the well-being of their children/members is this? Surely the world is not frequent with Tom-like Oxford-educated actors feeling bad about how good they have it. If some people arrived to the conclusion that they don't have to work because their parents provide for them, then I would argue their parents have failed them in other ways, but not because of what they provided. Should we decide on a different social contracts where people return things when they die? Sure. But start with the wealthiest please.

Dalewyn 2y ago
>But start with the wealthiest please. (Very) wealthy families already face stiff inheritance and/or estate taxes at both Federal and State levels. Important note, most middle class and all lower class families and individuals will never face inheritance/estate taxes.
- thekoma 2y ago
  I understand your point and thank you for raising it. The article mainly discussed the UK where a similar steep 40% estate inheritance tax exists for values above a certain threshold. There is also the 7 year rule that completely avoids inheritance tax. Elsewhere in Europe the situation is not as "progressive" and it's more frequent to face inheritance taxes. At the same time, it feels like there are many loopholes around these for the truly wealthy. Though, the perspective of the article reads like it's accusative of upper middle class families (and not higher).
- mattnewton 2y ago
  Minor note, on the federal level and most states, the “estate” is taxed, not the inheritance which has some subtle differences and loopholes. Also, very very wealthy families can pass much of their wealth through family office funds, blind trusts and company share transfers while living, that are taxed differently. Between the very high caps before an estate tax is used and the loopholes, extremely few dollars are taxed this way. https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-many-people-pay-estate-tax https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-many-people-pa...

robbiewxyz 2y ago

This is, in a significant part, the flip side of the housing crisis coin. Some of these mums and dads saved up but many, many more of them grew their wealth alongside their home values. Zoning policy, building regulations, and interest rates are a massive gate guarding generational wealth, for better or worse. Having personally suffered a lot for my parents poverty and homelessness, I have my biases, but then again don't we all.

ericyd 2y ago
I recently read a piece of local news on housing policies (Austin, TX) and the journalist made the observation that affordable housing is inevitably tied to reducing property values, which is a major source of wealth for older generations. It made me realize why some folks would be against zoning changes and other pro-housing policies, because it might actually impact their personal wealth. I don't know why I never correlated the two before.

BLKNSLVR 2y ago

Tangential point: With two kids, my wife and I still need one or other of our parents to ferry the kids back and forth to school and sports at various, sometimes regular, times. We're lucky / privileged enough to have both sets of parents and one bro/sis in-law all within a 15 minute drive. My MIL is ferrying one or other of her grandkids somewhere at least twice a week. Truly, these kids have been raised by the village / extended family. I had a (just lovely person) colleague who was a relatively recent migrant from Malaysia who had three kids, and her husband also worked and relatively long hours. They had no familial support network and I don't know how she / they managed. (everyone manages their own situation, it's just more gets sacrified, but you know what I mean). Family roots make a huge difference in not just money, but time (and availability), and yes it's an immense privilege to have that support network available - but it feels like a different kind of privilege to that of pure monetary support or the kind of privilege that breeds arrogance, corruption, and superiority complexes. It's also a privilege that I am actually looking forward to having the opportunity to provide to my children.

ty6853 2y ago
Immigrants survive because their children have more independence. In one karen helicopter parent town I had police called on me because my child was crying so a law must have been broken. They looked up my license, saw I came from <Immigrants dominant city>. They called my city and asked if the child was kidnapped and were essentially told to fuck off by my hometown police. I later got the body cam and these pathetic beasts were shocked my local police would not entertain their claims or even really give them the time of day as it were. So you can see the difference -- in karentown you must shuttle the smiling children everywhere or have them taken by CPS because God forbid they bike to a playground and entertain themselves. Meanwhile in immigrant town no one is entertaining even fraudulent kidnapping claims.

smitty1e 2y ago

> Or have I just fed you a “working-class done good” tale, because that’s how I attempt to justify my own exceedingly privileged position? Oh just get over yourself with the materialism-breeding-guilt nonsense. Live modestly; eschew debt; raise a family; find joy. The emphasis on "moi" and "muh stuff" is the bugaboo here.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]