No, passing resources from generation to generation is not what leads to "mass destruction", etc. Familial/generational resources have been the sustenance of almost all free humans since time immemorial. They would live on tribal [read: familial] lands for their entire existence, cooperatively sharing the wealth to ensure that the needs of family members were supplied.
We're still dependent on generational wealth for the first couple decades of our lives at a minimum, and there's no reason to cut it off there except a) jealousy that some people are able to do so; and b) a desire to lessen the interdependent bonds between sympathetic family members and strengthen the dependency on the cold, hard creditors, standing at the ready to collect interest and increase the cost of all durable goods by 1.5x-3x.
The fact that some things, like thrones and other official positions, may not be good fits for straight inheritance models doesn't mean that all inheritance is evil or that parents shouldn't be allowed to provide a resource pool that will persist after their deaths.
I hope that I can leave an estate that provides for the housing and basic needs of my children and grandchildren and I fully intend on passing it down to them. This has nothing to do with "aristocracy, social instability, and mass destruction", and the claim that it does is plain class hostility.
That's unrealistic, otherwise there would be a top-quality university in Missouri and Alabama. Our existence is one of constraints.
> Once you've committed to making Missouri and Alabama more productive, the process helps itself along, so it's actually nowhere near miraculous.
Education is the immediate antithesis of productivity -- we're on hacker news and you know that pair programming is either a code-quality, knowledge-sharing, or bug-avoidance issue, and specifically never a means for immediate gains nor all three. You can't throw cash at university and get smarter students -- I went to a top 50 school where the top administration is compensated better than the top 10.
> Actually, the last place I worked, everyone earned the same salary. We functioned pretty well.
What about now? Do you ask junior QA if you can give them the earning difference? If you oppose this notion based on separation of duty, do you think union politics would be better at making this differentiation?
> Because you can't enjoy things when you're dead, and we've seen in history that inheritance leads to aristocracy, social instability, and mass destruction.
You avoided the issue of removing inheritance being untenable. If I die, my nephew gets all of my wealth and I hope it brings him happiness and fulfillment. If you try to legislate that, I will simply route around you.
What mass destruction? What social instability? My partner comes from a communist nation and his/her (not interested in disclosing sexual details) experiences add color to the reality that political dispensation of resources is a terrible machinery.
Socialism/communism does not result in a more "equal" society. If hard numbers don't do it for you, find the nearest Chinese/Russian emigrant area and buy an older person a drink and ask if it's alright to pick his/her brain.
> Is it in your interest to defect in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma? Was it in the interest of Marie Antoinette to say, "Let them eat cake"? Your long-term rational interest can differ from short-term selfishness.
I have no obligation to your kids, will always pick my own kids over yours, and it's not a prisoner's dilemma -- if you try to tax me to the extent that I'm providing luxury for others, that changes the moral algebra for resources that I very well could shield from taxation.
Are you really claiming it's impossible to have good educational institutions anywhere except where we already do? This sounds like an overly-general claim: "anything that can be accomplished, already has been".
I don't think that there's anything natural about how much money your parents have. If we go back into history, the only "naturally capable" advantage some people had was a natural capacity to stick a sword through peasants and take their grain. "Natural" advantages came from violence, not from intrinsic individual greatness.
Actual individual greatness, like that of Einstein (for instance), is often just thrown into the general lot of human advancement.
>Assuming you mean "citizenship in the community" to be "I live in state X, that means I have a better chance of access to X State University", over a generation, this would just mean that for higher achieving state X, students from state Y would be locked out of better opportunities based on geographic residency.
Yes, that is a problem. However, the capacity limits you mention don't disappear when we just say, "Open University of California to the whole planet". The only real solution is to build up more top-quality universities in Missouri and Alabama.
Now, I know that trying to multiply one fish into thousands of fish and feed the masses can sound miraculous, but the amazing thing about education and technology is that they enhance productivity. Once you've committed to making Missouri and Alabama more productive, the process helps itself along, so it's actually nowhere near miraculous.
>Would you be willing to give up a percentage of your salary to someone else in your department that earns less, even if he/she doesn't work as hard or isn't as skilled? If yes, why aren't you doing that now?
Actually, the last place I worked, everyone earned the same salary. We functioned pretty well.
>Why are others more entitled to the results of my labor after I'm dead versus when I'm alive?
Because you can't enjoy things when you're dead, and we've seen in history that inheritance leads to aristocracy, social instability, and mass destruction.
>This suggestion makes my brain feel fuzzy. If the thought is that it's a natural process for the above-average to create advantages for themselves and their own, isn't this asking for more laws to compel them to act against their own interests?
Is it in your interest to defect in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma? Was it in the interest of Marie Antoinette to say, "Let them eat cake"? Your long-term rational interest can differ from short-term selfishness.