Endowments themselves accrue over time. There's no need to indulge some wealthy person's fantasy of everlasting life through their money, especially after they're dead, when more people will be along to take their place.
They didn't earn it, and it may adversely affect who they turn into as people.
Why not give it to literally anyone else? Why not give your money to me when you die? I'm sure your gut said, obviously not, why would I do that? That's how I feel about inherited wealth.
I don't think that's a bad thing. Allowing the social mores of the wealthy to continue driving society generations later is at best aristocratic. When we die, our influence should die with us, at least to the extent that later generations no longer share our present moral inclinations.
A foundation that wants to live in perpetuity should have to continually refresh itself with the dollars of later generations.
I would assume that they'd have wealth scheduled to be given away post-death, so that accidental/premature death wouldn't be too bad, yes. But that's an interesting point of how it can be difficult to give away fast enough, so perhaps you might as well start now, since e.g. if someone had to give away billions very quickly, it would probably not be allocated well compared to if they had a few decades to do it.
I don't think I will end up wealthy enough to worry about this myself of course, but it's another factor to take note of.
Then the dead guy will give all his money to his kids before dying.
At the very least the dead guy will pay for them to go to Harvard, arrange the appropriate internships, etc.
It’s very possible to preserve a class system without actually transferring wealth to your children upon death.
Just use your wealth and money to make sure they’re set before you die.
Easy-peasy.
Just look at the many children of still-Alice billionaires. They’re not hurting.
For example, Warren Buffet announced he was giving away all his wealth, created a foundation that possesses most of his wealth, and named his son as director.
Not rocket science.
And that doesn’t include the affects of private tutors, nanny’s, quality education, etc.
You seem to be assuming that the ultra rich keep their wealth as personal wealth. This is pretty far from what actually happens. In most cases they setup foundations with large endowments instead of directly passing it to heirs (though the heirs are often board members and never have to work a day in their life). You mention the Rockefellers as an example. Guess what foundation has a $4.1 billion endowment, 105 years after its founding? Where is Bill Gates putting all his money? A foundation.
See where I'm going with this? I'll take arguments against r > g seriously when they account for institutional wealth instead of just personal wealth.
The poor don't have estates. When they die, they leave their families wondering how to pay for the funeral, not how to preserve their holdings for the next generation.
If you’re dead you don’t get to make decisions anymore. These sorts of arguments would have more weight if the parents actually transferred the wealth earlier than their death or shortly before it, but they want to retain all the power that comes with that capital and then pick the winners in the next round of the economy by bequeathing it to their children.
If we want any sort of system even approaching a meritocracy then you should not be able to will away such vast estates that people can control entire companies or never work again a day in their life solely off the inherited assets
My point is that wealth is not a useful metric. To your point, having surplus wealth on the day of your death is not very useful, especially if your kids don't need it. That's why some people get reverse mortgages, to turn the value of their homes into spending cash during retirement.
the whole point of obscene wealth is it allows you to shield yourself from many of the conditions of society that less wealthy people must suffer, at least as long as society itself allows this. The dying of old thing seems more a thing they should be concerned with.
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