> A society where inheritance is not possible or heavily taxed are doomed to spiral into short-term entertainment consumer economies 1.) Are there numbers that

> A society where inheritance is not possible or heavily taxed are doomed to spiral into short-term entertainment consumer economies 1.) Are there numbers that back up this claim? 2.) I've already heard our society is in a death spiral of short-term entertainment and consumerism (and for reasons deeper than an estate tax). How do you suppose that an estate tax is somehow more fundamental? > That is, people, knowing they can't leave anything to their children, will spend as much as they can on things they don't really need, thus provoking the wrong kind of spending. Again numbers. Or any kind of precedent? Might one suggest that the children who inherit the wealth but don't have the work ethic are provoked into the wrong kind of spending? This claim seems all the work of narrative and no work of empirical grounding. > The question is, if I made my money honestly, do I have the right to spend my money as I please? That is not the question. It is one question in a long list of questions. Another question is how much of a right does someone have to do "A" before it interferes with the rights of others (the foundation of our values) - in cases where "A" is wealth accumulation there does exist points at which the rest of society is hurt. And in fact, nobody is suggesting that you may not pass inheritance, just that it be taxed like everything else. In fact taxed heavily. > If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair. It is a far, far cry from communism. Remember Locke's own concept of property - no land or wealth is owned by anyone, a person merely the products of their own labor (an apple for picking it, a crop for sewing it). The wealthy in this country and in modern capitalism have not earned the wealth by working the fields. They own the machines that work the field and pay the labor force that works the field. That is to say, they own the vaunted 'means of production'. Essentially, wealth creates and captures wealth. Piketty's analysis of this is damning. Piketty's framework is simple: An individual with accumulated capital's purpose is to live from their accumulated capital and grow the rest faster than inflation, so that their accumulation grows. When the savings rate (today for the top elite ~10%) outstrips the inflation rate (~1.2%), accumulated wealth grows. But workers wealth, which doesn't grow at 110% per year, actually decreases to 98% a year - they must be 2% more productive every year to get a 2% raise since they do not have access to the same savings rate as the financial elite. > think is immoral, evil and unfair I (and others) think that children inheriting billions of dollars, giant estates, seats of corporations, and ivy league entry by birth alone is immoral, evil and unfair. That is, a system which created classes of people based on dynasty rather than merit is not fabled capitalism - presumed to be based on merit. What we call for is not communism, but capitalism. A capitalism where there is equal opportunity for hard workers to get ahead. Huge inheritances is one of the largest hurdles to a functioning capitalism.