The interesting question is why? Why does a child have an inaliable right to their parent's wealth? Why does Paris Hilton have a right not to have her father's wealth redistributed to those who either need it more or who can use it more productively? It makes intuitive sense that redistribution of wealth that was actually earned seems somewhat wrong. I'm an entrepreneur and while I don't object to sharing my wealth I can understand why some may feel that they have claim to what they "earned". But I just don't see it for inheritance. Inherited wealth is not only irrational from the perspective of the child doing nothing to earn or deserve it beyond being born (we've mostly moved past monarchy for the same reason), but it is both an inefficient anti-meritocratic action and one that has led immense stagnation around the world where huge inequality is the norm. So a serious, non-trolling question, what rational justification for not significantly redistributing inheritance?
socialism in America.
- Thread starter zdreg
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It is not for the state to decide who morally deserves what they have legally got. The state is bound to uphold the general rules of law and possession.
People who have very little assets do not morally deserve to have more. However, the state is morally obliged to help them remain fed, clothed, sheltered and provided with health-care. This is obviously paid for by the taxes of the people who have more.
My question is why a child morally deserves to inherit their parent's wealth, take the state out of it entirely for now? I not only see no moral justification for it, but in fact it seems both morally unsupportable and societally suboptimal on nearly every level. Because something is "a general rule" isn't a justification, if it was we'd still have monarchies, to make a direct inheritance inference. Not to mention slavery, multiple wives as property and the rest of the "general rules" that lasted for thousands of years but are now not only morally unsupportable but considered reprehensible. So what's the moral reason why a child should get their parent's wealth having done nothing to earn or deserve it beyond the luck of being born to the right parent?
You're purposely ignoring my main point which is why the child deserves to get their parent's money despite having done nothing to deserve it or earn it besides the accident of birth to the right parent's and despite the suboptimal nature of such an arrangement. Which tells me you don't have a good answer for that; and neither do I. My response to not having a good justification is to question the original assertion, and I've not seen anything convincing to support the status quo beyond that it is the status quo. The constantly changing justifications actually imply feching around for an ex post facto justification for something that originally had none, which is natural human nature but one I try mightily to resist. BTW, states impose morals in thousands of ways every day ( to not to murder, for example, or to not to have slaves, or to not smoke marijuana, or to tax alcohol more than pop tarts...), so the whole "it's not up to the state" argument is as unsound as the "general rules" argument given that, as it appears, we're both in agreement that government and laws determined by a democracy do have some ligitimacy and purpose. And I would maintain that a person's reach beyond the grave should necessarily be limited given that they are no longer around to benefit or detriment from those decisions. Again, it's traditional that a person can't indicate who they will vote for or enter into contracts after death, why did we decide they get to control all the money they earned but can't take with them? Unexamined questions, perhaps worth thinking about?
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Why is it ludicrous to ask why Paris Hilton is either morally entitled to her father's fortune, did anything to earn or deserve it, or if society is best served by passing her father's fortune on to her? Those all seem like imminently reasonable, if somewhat inconvenient, questions? Don't lose the thread here, I'm challenging a long held but never examined belief. Don't be the person who refuses to examine it because they're concerned about what they'll find. You're better than that!
Thus sayeth the lord? That's really more of an abrahamic pronouncement than a reason, the state determines what happens to property both during life and after death all the time. Ever try to build a factory on that R-1 zoned residential lot you "own"? Hell where I live you need permission from the "state" to put in a deck or plumb a garbage disposal!
It appears that children get to inherit their parents property regardless of not doing anything to earn or deserve it, purely by accident of their birth, either because it's always been that way or because we say so, not for any moral reason that can be explained or elucidated. That says a lot, maybe we should question things like this more often?