Yeah, you may be right about the republican talking point with farmers. I have no direct anecdotes with farmers, and with the one friend I have in the agriculture world, the topic never came up. The main anecdotes I have are with people who have estates that were big enough to have to worry about what would happen to their businesses when they died, since they couldn't just pass on the business to their heir. This is a hard problem even without the threat of a government wanting their cut, since companies don't have a tendency to survive their founders leaving.

Also, make no mistake, I'm not trying to apologize for people who are already extremely wealthy, who have to deal with this problem. I would love to have the problem of what to do with a company big enough to need to sell it upon my death. I'm merely trying to point out, that estate taxes do have a consolidating effect that feeds mega corporations. What I don't know is if this effect is as big as I suspect it is, or if it's simply dwarfed by other factors, like the general desire to sell out for a big payday.