Is Inheritance Morally Wrong?

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#1
thett3
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It seems like "inheritance" is a bit of a dirty word. Virtually no one who has the opportunity to receive one turns it down, but it's something people don't really talk about. I understand this in some sense because it is certainly uncouth to brag and it's hard to talk about without coming off as a braggart. And of course people are going to be jealous. But it seems to come from something deeper than that, it seems as if people are embarrassed or ashamed to be living with the support of family money. I see all the time people making statements like "you're living off the fruits of someone else's labor" and other sentiments that make me think that people have a pretty dismal view of those who gain wealth that they didn't earn themselves.

Here is my basic position on inheritance: 

I disagree with the enlightenment (for lack of a better word) idea that the basic building block of a society is the individual. A society of solitary individuals is not a society at all. Not any more than solitary bears and tigers can be described as having a society. The basic building block of society is NOT the individual, but rather the relationships between individuals. The most basic, and the most powerful, of which is the family. So when money passes from parents to their children, I don't see it as a transfer of wealth from one person to another, but rather I see it as wealth remaining within the same entity, like how property and copyrights and such remain within a corporation even when there is turnover. It's the same entity. I also completely disagree with the Anglo-American/Protestant idea that as soon as someone is 18, their parents are done with them.

I not only support inheritance and intergenerational wealth transfers, but see them as a moral imperative. When I see parents with means allow their children to take on student loan debt and struggle to make rent, I see parents who are failing in their obligations and who are aborting their potential grandchildren. I believe that the entire point of building wealth is so that you can give it to your children, to ensure that they lead lives of high quality, and bear you grandchildren. 

My personal backstory is one of lots of financial support from my family. I've never received an inheritance and my parents never straight up gave me money, but they paid for my college and allowed me to live at home rent free for a few years before I got married. This constitutes a very significant wealth transfer, well into the six figures. It also resulted in me being financially ready to have a child long before most of my peers, so I think it will end up being a very good deal for their personal happiness. This is something that I want to do for my kids when the time comes, if not support them even further. 

If you receive in inheritance you have an obligation to take care of it, to keep it healthy and to pass it on when your time comes. The lazy bum living a lavish lifestyle off the sale of his dads company is acting immorally not because he has an obligation to society to work, but because he has an obligation to his family not to squander what previous generation have earned.

Politically this means I am opposed to an inheritance tax. The US has inheritance tax laws that only kick in at an extremely high amount of wealth ($11 million) so I am not really concerned with the law here. But I'm opposed all the same, because I view family money as remaining within the same entity, so an inheritance tax constitutes an act of double taxation. That money has already been taxed, just as a firms assets should not be taxed when the CEO changes a families assets should not be taxed when the makeup of the family changes. I am strongly opposed to the types of inheritance taxes  you see in European countries, which often kick in at very low thresholds of around $100-$300k. I would contend that a person should ABSOLUTELY be able to inherit millions of dollars without the government getting involved at all. Something I don't think most people would agree with. 

What do you guys think? What's your view on the morality of inheritance? I hope this didn't come off as preachy but instead articulated a viewpoint.
#2
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I am a rather radical guy on it, if it were up to me the world would be completely fair, I mean as in parenting the same, childhood the same. One world nation pure fair start in life.

That's obviously unrealistic as things are so am I gonna look out for my own if I can post-death? Fuck yes.
#3
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@thett3
No, inheritance is not morally wrong. It doesn't use anybody against their will, or anything that could be really considered immoral. Making a better life for ones children was the driving incentive of many American immigrants. 
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I grew up on a farm wondering after the work that my grandfather did to make it what it was. No diggers, rotavators, none of the modern day machinery that I'm accustomed to. There's stone houses all over the farm, still standing, they boggle my mind even looking at them. It's like a monastery up there. Ditches, dikes, perfectly flat fields. A huge expanse of land. He made hay by hand. He cut turf with the slean. No slotted houses, no milking machines, no slurry spreaders. And the place was immaculate until the day he died. My dad brought him a power hose when he was old and not much left in him and we could have buried him with it. He never left it out of his hands. Long way to come from handpumps and shallow wells. He died of farmer's lung. I couldn't put a number on my inheritance.

I don't much know what the moral of that story is, but I think about it a lot. Especially as a programmer these days. I put hours and hours of work into a thing and there's nothing there. I'll leave behind a bank account. 
#5
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@thett3
Humans of Earth, inherit the Earth.
Citizens of a country, inherit the country.
Members of a clan, inherit a clan.

My schizophrenic uncle's inheritance was a single dollar, as I 'think inheritance laws required he receive 'something. He lived with other family members, rest of his life.

I suppose kids should inherit 'something, whether it's knowledge and will in how to make it in this world or means (Money) to help them through.
Parents responsible for bringing the kids into it.
Though I'd also like a duty to parents.

I suppose moral question, is if one takes offense at favoritism, believing in Communism, facelessness.
'Or,
If one has concerns about Oligarchs.
#6
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@thett3

I disagree with the enlightenment (for lack of a better word) idea that the basic building block of a society is the individual. A society of solitary individuals is not a society at all. Not any more than solitary bears and tigers can be described as having a society.
You've missed the point. Enlightenment philosophy never suggests that society consists of "solitary" individuals. It suggests that society starts at the individual level--hence, individuals are the building blocks.

The basic building block of society is NOT the individual, but rather the relationships between individuals.
Relationships which have no meaning without the individual.

The most basic, and the most powerful, of which is the family.
The family is a prominent and fundamental catalyst in the psychological development of an individual, indeed.

So when money passes from parents to their children, I don't see it as a transfer of wealth from one person to another, but rather I see it as wealth remaining within the same entity, like how property and copyrights and such remain within a corporation even when there is turnover. It's the same entity. I also completely disagree with the Anglo-American/Protestant idea that as soon as someone is 18, their parents are done with them.
But families aren't a single entity. Like any group, families comprise of individuals. Personally, I'm very much enamored with and partial to the concept of family, thus informing the value I place on members of my own family. Nevertheless, I do not conflate my sense of self with theirs--not unless one poses a threat to them, in which case rules be damned, and the aggressor will face my wrath.

I not only support inheritance and intergenerational wealth transfers, but see them as a moral imperative. When I see parents with means allow their children to take on student loan debt and struggle to make rent, I see parents who are failing in their obligations and who are aborting their potential grandchildren.
You may be exaggerating a bit. There's no dereliction in parental obligation if one chooses to teach one's child self-sufficiency and self-reliance. My parents taught self-reliance to my siblings and me, despite their having means. And one's financial circumstances should always be a factor when considering the feasibility of having children. One is not aborting one's potential children because one  decides against it while being broke.
I believe that the entire point of building wealth is so that you can give it to your children, to ensure that they lead lives of high quality, and bear you grandchildren. 
Personally, I agree. I don't see any point to wealth-accumulation if not to one day hand it over to one's children. With that said, the alienation of wealth--mass or not--is still subject to individual discretion.

My personal backstory is one of lots of financial support from my family. I've never received an inheritance and my parents never straight up gave me money, but they paid for my college and allowed me to live at home rent free for a few years before I got married. This constitutes a very significant wealth transfer, well into the six figures. It also resulted in me being financially ready to have a child long before most of my peers, so I think it will end up being a very good deal for their personal happiness. This is something that I want to do for my kids when the time comes, if not support them even further. 
And it is my opinion that you shouldn't be ashamed of this past experience (not that you implied that you were.) I agree with your earlier statement that 18's being an arbitrary division. If your parents supported you financially until such a point where both you and they felt that you were ready to embark on your own financial independence, then that's all that matters. And I think it's admirable the amount of thought you've put into having children and your capacity to financially support them.

I was actually on my own (financially) since the age of 15. But that's a story for another time.

If you receive in inheritance you have an obligation to take care of it, to keep it healthy and to pass it on when your time comes.
Yes, yes, and yes. Although, I would modify obligation with the descriptive, "personal." I do not believe any other institution should interfere.

The lazy bum living a lavish lifestyle off the sale of his dads company is acting immorally not because he has an obligation to society to work, but because he has an obligation to his family not to squander what previous generation have earned.
In order to establish "immorality," one would first have to establish an undue deprivation of that to which another has claim. And even if the recipient of an inheritance were to squander his or her wealth, he or she would have the right to do so.

Politically this means I am opposed to an inheritance tax.
So am I.

so an inheritance tax constitutes an act of double taxation.
Very astute observation. So what does that convey to you about the purpose of an inheritance tax?

I would contend that a person should ABSOLUTELY be able to inherit millions of dollars without the government getting involved at all. Something I don't think most people would agree with. 
I would take it a step further. I would contend that any transfer of money consisting of any amount should be insulated from government interference.

I hope this didn't come off as preachy but instead articulated a viewpoint.
Not preachy at all. And despite my disagreeing with you here and there, it's articulate and considerate.

#7
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We like meritocracy and disdain anything that goes against it, whether that be a welfare state or Inheritance or nepotism. 

With that said, I want to make sure my child can live rent free until he is ready to purchase a home, and I would hope I can pay for his education so he doesn't go into deep debt.

As somebody who was emancipated at 16 and had to do everything on my own, it's been very tough. Nobody should have to fight that hard for a mediocre life. 
#8
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@thett3
Hey thett, happy new year.  I can play devil's advocate on this issue. 

The moral argument from friends against inheritance is twofold: first, they prefer a society with more meritocracy, and second, they don't support inheritance under the status quo largely in part to it being predicated on a historically unequal system. 

Inheritance was vested largely to perpetuate concentrated wealth among a select few. It significantly benefited white males, especially those connected to the monarchy. Later it benefitted more white males, but certain populations were legally excluded from wealth and wealth building. I have friends that would be okay with inheritance in the future, if somehow there could be some kind of societal "reset" that would account for widespread discrepancies today stemming from past injustices like slavery, Jim Crow, red lining, and other barriers which expressly gave certain populations significant advantages. 

It's true that 22% of American households receive a wealth transfer through inheritance, and they can use that money to save, invest and/or pass on to their children. But the most common inheritance is only between $10 and $50,000... not exactly baller figures. 

Meanwhile the very rich have a ton of money to leave behind. What would the world look like if they were not able to pass it on to their heirs? They would be compelled to spend their money rather than hoard it. Think of all the businesses Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos would build. Think about the technology they would invest in. Think about the sheer number of jobs that would create, helping others in society grow and generate wealth that actually gets spent and remains in circulation (taxed). Think about the projects that would come to fruition, the charities, nonprofits and all the other endeavors that rich people would be compelled to invest in knowing that their money would essentially disappear once they died. 

They could still set up their heirs for success of course. The kids would still have a ton of privilege from attending the best schools to primo connections and job opportunities.  They would certainly have an easier time than others building their own wealth, so it's not like generational wealth would cease to have advantages  in a world without inheritance. That's not a world that I personally want to live in, but I can see why others do.


#9
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@thett3
I tend to think the “looking down on others” attitude you described is really nothing more than jealousy. It’s always going to piss people off when they see someone else as having gotten a free ride where as in their view they’ve had to work for everything they have.

Key phrase here of course is “in their view”. Illusory superiority infects all of us on some level. The same notion applies to the challenges we have had to face.

I don’t agree with your view however that a family should be regarded as an entity. The most basic principal of capitalism is the idea that we are each in control of our own destiny and are each therefore responsible for it. What you’re describing is the antithesis of that.

I do believe some amount of wealth should be able to be passed down tax free, but that’s more for the benefit of the individual who earned it. If I work hard all my life to gain what I’ve got I should be able to leave something to those I care about most. We all deserve that. It’s when we start getting into the millions and especially tens of millions that I think it becomes excessive and more importantly, detrimental to society. 

I believe in a society where everyone is given a fair opportunity to succeed. Excessive wealth passed down from one generation to the next all but ensures the opposite.
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I wasn’t expecting so many quality responses. I will try to respond to all this weekend 
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@RationalMadman
I am a rather radical guy on it, if it were up to me the world would be completely fair, I mean as in parenting the same, childhood the same. One world nation pure fair start in life.

That's obviously unrealistic as things are so am I gonna look out for my own if I can post-death? Fuck yes.
My issue is really with the highlighted bit. I don't believe true equality is possible because even if it were realistic, there are enough people out there who would try to give their own a leg up no matter what. It's a very strong urge. We are all descended from people and organisms who WON in the competition for resources and mates etc. 

I don't really think of myself as a conservative anymore because it isn't really a proscriptive ideology. But when I do, it's because of things like this, where I see a wisdom in just leaving well enough alone instead of trying to achieve something impossible. We could severely hamper peoples ability to pass on wealth and then try to fight them giving money out throughout their lives instead, giving their kids high paying sinecures at their companies, inflating the prices of exempt assets (such as farmland) taking money overseas, hiding their wealth....or just leave well enough alone. Honestly the US probably has one of the best policies, with a few tweaks...a threshold high enough that the incentive to fight it (and the ability to hide it) is pretty low but enough that the state does get some revenue 
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I grew up on a farm wondering after the work that my grandfather did to make it what it was. No diggers, rotavators, none of the modern day machinery that I'm accustomed to. There's stone houses all over the farm, still standing, they boggle my mind even looking at them. It's like a monastery up there. Ditches, dikes, perfectly flat fields. A huge expanse of land. He made hay by hand. He cut turf with the slean. No slotted houses, no milking machines, no slurry spreaders. And the place was immaculate until the day he died. My dad brought him a power hose when he was old and not much left in him and we could have buried him with it. He never left it out of his hands. Long way to come from handpumps and shallow wells. He died of farmer's lung. I couldn't put a number on my inheritance.

I don't much know what the moral of that story is, but I think about it a lot. Especially as a programmer these days. I put hours and hours of work into a thing and there's nothing there. I'll leave behind a bank account. 
Beautiful post, I don't know what else to say. Are you not the heir to the farm/has it been sold? Why couldn't you pass that on?
#13
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@thett3
We are all descended from people and organisms who WON in the competition for resources and mates etc. 
Won a competition that is very unfair.

Starts in lives, ways others treat us during that life and so much about life is totally unfair and different on all of us vs others. Some get it all way easier than others do.

Due to monogamy being normalised, the competiton isn't even genuine anymore. It's even more unfair as those who get their first or are more socially acceptable get to conceive and raise while those lower on the superficial food chain or who turn up later get much less competing power.
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#14
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@Athias
Philosophical discussion about the family vs. individuals
It's clear that your understanding of philosophy and such is a lot more sophisticated that mine. What I'm trying to get at, in a somewhat hamfisted way, is that I think of the family as something so valuable that while individuals are individuals, their lives should more or less dedicated to propagating it unless their families are REALLY toxic. For me, I want kids really badly but even if I didn't I would still do it just out of a sense of duty to my parents who I know really want grandchildren. I do think we as individuals have some obligation to our families, honor thy mother and father and all that. When I think about the money I have and the money I expect to earn in the future, a lot of what I'm thinking about is future generations

But my view does fall apart at some level for sure. For example punishing the families for an individuals crime would obviously be unjust and immoral, and some people have every right to cut out their families. 

In order to establish "immorality," one would first have to establish an undue deprivation of that to which another has claim. And even if the recipient of an inheritance were to squander his or her wealth, he or she would have the right to do so.
We might have a disagreement here. They should have a legal right to do so because otherwise the government is dictating how people spend their money which is obviously a terrible idea. But I would consider an heir who inherits tons of money from past generations and squanders it to be doing something immoral, especially if their own children are struggling. They have a kind of fiduciary responsibility as a steward of assets...I guess this issue is why most serious wealth is held in trusts

On the other hand I do think it's wrong when greedy heirs act entitled to their parents or their grandparents money. So morality is probably a lot more conditional than the framework I laid out in my OP
#15
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Due to monogamy being normalised,
more like "serial-polygamy" with divorce being normalized
#16
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I don't agree that's an issue. If you're with a person you don't get along with, there's no need to force yourself to live through hell. It's not even better for the children.
#17
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@RationalMadman
I don't agree that's an issue. If you're with a person you don't get along with, there's no need to force yourself to live through hell. It's not even better for the children.
it's also NOT "monogamy"
#18
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@thett3
I get the farm, but it's rented to solar power for the next 30 years and probably after, construction to start this year. But I guess I was thinking in terms of the health of the thing, were your words for it. It will be worth money, but there will be nothing of the riches in it that I saw. It's a frustrating thought, I guess. I guess I had your whole de-scaled idea in mind writing that also. 

I had a poetical granduncle fairly well regarded walked the land when my grandfather first got it, said of it that it was "undiscovered". My grandmother I heard that from, his sister, I guess she was proud of what she had made too. And then I come along 40 years later. 

I got memories in my head like, we had the biggest bull in our province at one point. A real monster. But one day I was in the top yard with my father and my uncle comes around the corner of an open front shed, the bull the other side of the wall facing us. He gave the bull a heart attack. The bull leapt up, jumped around, gave a roar, had to walk it off out in the yard. No danger, you know, just pure comedy.

We had three rams for guard dogs. They had to go eventually for assault on a postman, typical story. But my uncle had got a new car and was babying it, had it all washed out one day and doors left open to dry. Obviously he came back to the three rams made themselves nice and comfortable in his new car. Uproar.

I woke early one weekend morning on April Fool's. I guess I was 7 or 8. I found a bunch of goats outside in our lawn. Went into the room to my parents, informed them, was shooed off. Was eating cereal and watching TV in the sitting room when I heard my father learn the truth of it. Bastardí my nana called them. Irish for bastards I guess.

We had every sort of animal for a while. My granddad would wash down the yard and the ducks would congregate where the drain would block. We had pigs, geese, chickens, horses, donkeys, sheep. My grandmother would even take greyhound puppies from trainers, raise them up until the time they were ready to start training. You know, it wasn't just livelihood. It was an abundance of life. There's still cats everywhere. Bit murderous those. 

My dad told me a story once about the horses. Back when they were workhorses, come winter, my grandfather would bring them down the forest and set them loose, not to be looking after them over winter. Then came spring and he'd go down again and stand at the edge of the forest and give a whistle and they'd come back to work. Doesn't that sound like magic. I would have loved to see it. Reminds me of fucking Gandalf and Shadowfax.

We've got fields of this type of grass, looking down along them on a summer's day and the sun down on the them, they look to have all the depth of the ocean. 

A taxman thinking he had claim to any of that might be found a thousand years later perfectly preserved in bogland. 

And it's all gone soon. My dad and I worked in power stations. I'm a programmer since. Soon there will be tar roads down through the land. A substation. The fields will be covered over with solar panels. There will be no use for the yard and the houses and they were already falling into disrepair. I spent my childhood on that farm. I had a thousand shortcuts, I don't know if I carved them out myself or what. I had a hundred trees to climb and every one of them mapped out. Was I rich or what. What in the fuck am I gonna give my kids.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. 
#19
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My grandfather might as well have been God Almighty. 
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#20
thett3
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@badger
You must embrace your destiny to become like these guys: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pit0OkNp7s8
#21
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@thett3
Very famous video here haha.

Can you understand him?
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#22
thett3
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@badger
My dad told me a story once about the horses. Back when they were workhorses, come winter, my grandfather would bring them down the forest and set them loose, not to be looking after them over winter. Then came spring and he'd go down again and stand at the edge of the forest and give a whistle and they'd come back to work. Doesn't that sound like magic. I would have loved to see it. Reminds me of fucking Gandalf and Shadowfax.
You actually told this story on DDO years ago and it’s stuck with me
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#23
thett3
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@badger
The second one kind of the first one no, other than “possibly a night” and “full moon.” Is he speaking English at the beginning or Irish? 

I thought this one was funny too https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0HCAF30qU6s
#24
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@thett3
At the beginning he's saying "There's a fine mark on them. Red and blue, anyone can see it." Talking about the markings on the sheep.

I have to listen to real close to hear it too. All English. 
#25
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@thett3
I imagine,

That people who think that inheritance is immoral.

Are people who won't be getting one.

Unless they unexpectedly get one,

And then you can bet,

Morality would shine like a beacon of light from the heavens,

Out of their arses,

As it were.
#26
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@thett3
One of my biggest issues with inheritance being taxed is that I much prefer personal wealth and things like sole proprietorships to corporate wealth. By taxing interpersonal wealth transfers every time the property holder dies you're handicapping real, personal property ownership, as corporations are artificial persons and never die, so the property never needs to be transferred. I think that one of the most morally hideous aspects of the current US economy lies in the massive buyouts of farmland and residential property by corporate interests. An inheritance tax, especially one capped as low as those in some European countries, accelerates wealth transfers like that.

I think that, morally, inheritance doesn't have an issue with it on any level. It can cause problems depending on surrounding economic and social contexts but those aren't problems with inheritance itself. You don't want a society, for example, where all the farmland is owned by a few oligarchs. One of the reasons behind the slow collapse of Rome can be traced back to this problem; eventually politicians instituted a grain dole to buy the loyalty of the impoverished populace and riots would regularly break out if that supply dried up. Bread and circuses - not a good way to maintain a virtuous populace.
#27
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@ResurgetExFavilla
Yes, yes so the children of the rich are just getting a personal very important brutal boost that's unearned and the children of the poor get... Next to nothing because that's earned too.

It's a sick and twisted thing, when you really think about it.
#28
ResurgetExFavilla
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I think the opposite is true: it's only 'sick and twisted' to people who don't think about it at all. They just say 'I don't like this aspect of it, so I'm not going to examine any possible reason that any of this has for existing in the first place.' Utopian, idealistic ideas of fairness and universal plenty require pretty much zero thought or originality, it's why they're so popular among the young. Just take what feels nice and say 'wow, I wish the world were like this' while ignoring all of the realities that underpin human societies, families, tribes, nations, etc. The status quo has unfathomably higher amounts of careful thought behind it compared to some pipe dream that ignores human nature, and the complex situations which arise from the intersection of all these myriad little threads of human behavior.
#29
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@ResurgetExFavilla
I'll tell you what takes zero thought or originality... Tribalism and egocentrism, 'me and my kind are better than the rest of you and deserve this reward for being linked to me'.

We say we aren't just barbaric animals and people like yourself (I'm presuming you're a hardcore Christian) even deny we are primates that evolved alongside apes. On the other hand, we live a life of such unfair and barbaric favouritism and then pretend it's okay.

Sure, it's okay. What do I care anyway? The rich got dilemmas too, just not the dilemma of how they're gonna feed themselves or pay rent.
#30
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We don't 'pretend' that favoritism is okay -- favoritism is okay. It's the foundational principle of love. A mother favors her children. A wife favors her husband. A child favors their family. This isn't exclusive to the rich, but to the poor as well, who also dream of having something to leave to those whom they care for, to provide for those whom they value far into the future, and would not break bread to feed the whole city block if it meant that their own children would go to bed with half-empty bellies. You do love to wrap the mantle of the poor around yourself, but poor people by and large aren't animated by the same venomous spite and resentment that you are. They have families and other human ties which adorn their otherwise dire circumstances, and make them more bearable. It's not the poor that feel such burning resentment, but those who have isolated themselves and failed to make and hold on to healthy human bonds and a supportive community.