Warren Buffet has been quoted as saying "The idea that you get a lifetime of privately funded food stamps based on coming out of the right womb strikes at my idea of fairness."
There's a strong argument for high estate taxes on the principle that the inheritance of wealth is inherently anti-democratic. Most historical dictatorships have been based on the simple principle of compound interest. In Britain two thirds of our land is still owned by just 6,000 people, most of them aristocrats. I think any American would be a fool to forget that their nation was founded as a rejection of British serfdom, and that their nation is perhaps the only one in history that has not lived under the tyranny of oligarchy. It seems to me to be no coincidence that America is almost unique in the world in not having a common cultural sense that economic wealth inevitably translates into political power.
For a contemporary example of the perils of unearned wealth, we need look no further than Russia - in less than two decades it has descended to a state of pure plutocracy, based on little more than unchecked accumulation of wealth and simple corruption. Those opposing campaign finance laws and regulation of that sort would be wise to look at the career of Vladimir Putin as a cautionary example of what happens when wealth is allowed to dominate democracy.
I consider myself a classic liberal, on largely utilitarian grounds - I believe that a free market is good for us all and that any regulation of that market is likely to do more harm than good. However, I fail to see the harm done to society by considering a dead person's assets to be essentially 'dead money', beyond that which is necessary to sustain his family. If you truly wish to have a lasting influence on the world after your death, trust laws give you ample opportunity to leave a permanent economic legacy. The likes of Gates, Buffet, Carnegie and Rockefeller seem to recognise this. I fail to see what good comes of inheritance, but do see a long history of great wrongs resulting from it. From the perspective of this Brit, inheritance seems to be more fundamentally un-American than most things condemned as such.
Warren Buffet has been quoted as saying "The idea that you get a lifetime of privately funded food stamps based on coming out of the right womb strikes at my idea of fairness."
There's a strong argument for high estate taxes on the principle that the inheritance of wealth is inherently anti-democratic. Most historical dictatorships have been based on the simple principle of compound interest. In Britain two thirds of our land is still owned by just 6,000 people, most of them aristocrats. I think any American would be a fool to forget that their nation was founded as a rejection of British serfdom, and that their nation is perhaps the only one in history that has not lived under the tyranny of oligarchy. It seems to me to be no coincidence that America is almost unique in the world in not having a common cultural sense that economic wealth inevitably translates into political power.
For a contemporary example of the perils of unearned wealth, we need look no further than Russia - in less than two decades it has descended to a state of pure plutocracy, based on little more than unchecked accumulation of wealth and simple corruption. Those opposing campaign finance laws and regulation of that sort would be wise to look at the career of Vladimir Putin as a cautionary example of what happens when wealth is allowed to dominate democracy.
I consider myself a classic liberal, on largely utilitarian grounds - I believe that a free market is good for us all and that any regulation of that market is likely to do more harm than good. However, I fail to see the harm done to society by considering a dead person's assets to be essentially 'dead money', beyond that which is necessary to sustain his family. If you truly wish to have a lasting influence on the world after your death, trust laws give you ample opportunity to leave a permanent economic legacy. The likes of Gates, Buffet, Carnegie and Rockefeller seem to recognise this. I fail to see what good comes of inheritance, but do see a long history of great wrongs resulting from it. From the perspective of this Brit, inheritance seems to be more fundamentally un-American than most things condemned as such.