Chapter 16. The Inheritor Ares and heiresses are usually depicted as
irresponsible, idle, lazy individuals who enjoy lives of unearned luxury. This is perhaps
a true characterization of many in the class, but it does not detract from the heroic role
played by the inheritor. An inheritance is simply a form of gift, a gift that is given
given upon death.
Like gifts that are given upon births, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and holidays, it
can be defined as the voluntary transfer of considerations from one party to another.
One cannot, therefore, oppose inheritances and at the same time favor other types of
gifts.
Yet, many people do just that.
Their anti-inheritance bias is spurred on by images of thieves who pass on their ill-gotten
gains to their children.
They see members of the ruling class accumulating fortunes not through honest trade, but through
government subsidies, tariffs and licensing protections, and passing on what they have
accumulated.
Surely, this should be prohibited.
The elimination of an inheritance seems to be a solution.
It would, however, be impossible to eliminate inheritance unless all other types of gifts
were also eliminated.
The 100% tax on inheritance, often suggested as the means by which to eliminate inheritance,
would not accomplish this.
For if other types of gifts were permitted, the tax could easily be circumvented.
Money and property could simply be transferred by means of birthday gifts, Christmas gifts,
etc.
Parents might even have gifts held in trust for their children to be turned over on the
child's first birthday after the death of the parent.
The solution to the problem of illicitly earned wealth, white collar and otherwise, does not
lie in preventing the next generation from obtaining the ill-gotten funds, but in making
Being certain that these funds are not retained in the first place, attention should rather
be focused on retrieving the illicit property and returning it to the victim.
Will it be argued that the 100% inheritance tax is a second-best policy?
That since we do not have the power to strip the criminals of their ill-gotten gains, efforts
should be made to deny them the opportunity of passing the fortunes on to their children?
This is contradictory.
If the power is lacking to bring criminals to justice because white-collar criminals
control the system of justice, then clearly there is a lack of power to impose a 100 percent
inheritance tax on them.
In fact, even if such a tax could be enacted and enforced, the yearning for egalitarian
Egalitarianism, which really animates all such proposals, would be frustrated.
For true egalitarianism means not only an equal distribution of money, but also an equal
distribution of non-monetary considerations.
How would the egalitarians remedy the inequities between those who are sighted and those who
are blind, those who are musically talented and those who are not, those who are beautiful
What of the inequities between those who have happy dispositions and those who are prone
to melancholy?
How would the egalitarians mediate them?
Could money be taken from those who have too much happiness and given to those who have
too little as compensation?
How much is a happy disposition worth?
Should $10 per year trade at par for five units of happiness?
The ludicrousness of such a position might lead the egalitarians to adopt a second best
policy, such as the one used by the dictator in Harrison Bergeron, a short story in Welcome
to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut.
In the story, strong people were forced to carry weights in order to bring them down
to the level of the rest of the people.
Logically inclined individuals were forced to wear earphones that gave forth shockingly
loud sounds in proportion to their musical talent.
This is where the desire for egalitarianism logically leads.
The elimination of monetary inheritance is but the first step.
It is the inheritor and the institution of inheritance that stands between civilization
as we know it, and a world in which no talent or happiness is allowed to mar equality.
If individuality and civilization are valued, the inheritor will be placed on the pedestal
he richly deserves.