[extropy-chat] Inheritance

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jul 29, 2005, at 4:24 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:

>
>
> --- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Uh huh.  And your proposal re inheritance meets this
>> criteria?  No?
>> Then why should yours be enforced above people's
>> free choice?
>>
>
> Well considering that kings and dictators are people
> too, why should democracy be enforced above their free
> will to power?

We are not speaking of king and dictators.  We are speaking of your  
willingness to use force on free fellow citizens to enforce your  
ideas of what is "too much" inheritance.  Since these are just your  
notions and not subject to rational analysis that would proof their  
correctness I was surprised you would appeal to rationality and even  
something as straightforward as "2 + 2 = 4" to support your scheme.   
The above doesn't answer my inquiry at all but is the flimsiest of  
devices.   Your willingness to enforce your notions by power of  
government has nothing to de with democracy.


> This is not mine, it is simply the
> extension of the Rennaissance Enlightenment followed
> to it's logical conclusion. If hereditary secular
> power is wrong, then inheritance caps should exist.
>

How so.  Show your work please.  Throwing about the Renaissance  
Enlightenment look like more hand waving.
>
>> By what ironclad rationality do you reach the
>> conlclusion that no one
>> should inherit more than $1 million or that a rich
>> person should
>> leave any heir more than that?  I missed your
>> derivation of that result.
>>
>
> It was a figure of convenience and I said a home and a
> million dollars. The million dollars was just used
> because there is a currently held perception that a
> million dollars is some kind of threshold of wealth.
> People remember earning their first million better
> than earning the millions that come after. But the
> actual limit ought to be set as a percentage of the
> national GDP or something.


Why should any limit at all be set?  That is the missing gist of your  
plan.

> The point is simply to
> allow the capitalist system in this country to become
> FAIRER in a game-theoretical sense.

More hand waving.  Fairer in reference to what standards applicable  
how and why?

> Would you want to
> play basketball against me if I started with 30 points
> and you started with 0? What more is a hereditary
> monarch then a guy who starts out with enough points
> to win the game before it starts?

Worthless analogies are not helpful.

>
>
>> Where did the caps come from though?  You just
>> thought them up with
>> little justification,
>>
>
>
>> From a enlightenment-capitalist-freemarket disdain of
>>
> heriditary power. A self-made millionaire is an idol,
> "old money" is a tyrant.
>

But money is not heriditary power in the sense despised by the  
enlightenment at all.   It is not armed force or coercion by the  
state or other bodies privileged with the use of legal force.  It is  
you who are proposing using such force to strip citizens of their  
property if they become in your eyes too successful or do not dispose  
of their wealth as you wish.


>
>> Trust funds are used for a variety of purposes many
>> of which are
>> quite benign.  Before you condemn something you may
>> want to look into
>> it a bit.
>>
>
> You mistake me, I am not condemning trust funds, I am
> just not certain how they could made less prone to
> abuse.
>

But you seem to have a peculiar notion of abuse.  Using legal means  
to protect one's own property from those who would take it hardly  
qualifies in my mind as "abuse".  It is rather an attempt to avoid  
being abused.

>
>> Resentment clearly at work!  Excess???  How much
>> "excess" does it
>> take to fund research that your society would
>> otherwise not fund that
>> is critical to our dreams?
>>
>
> Well that brings up an interesting question of who
> make better philanthropists? Noveau riche or old
> money? Who are liable to be more abusive with their
> money?
>

The most abusive of all are those without money who would control the  
wealth of others.

>
>> What is excessive about
>> someone having
>> so much of value to give that they accumulated more
>> than most in
>> their live and what is wrong with them making their
>> own decisions
>> about where their assets go on their demise without
>> bothering to
>> consider your opinions on the matter?
>>
>
> Well excuse me for caring that I see a disparity in
> the system and want to correct it.

So now you are going to be defensive?

> Why do you feel  so
> threatened but what I am suggesting any way? It's not
> like I have any say in what the country does. I am not
> a senator, representative, or even vice-chair of a
> minority party. I don't even really identify with ANY
> political party.  I am just stating my opinion without
> any expectation that anybody cares let alone would
> adopt it as their own view. So yes in actuality I
> fully expect people to decide what to do with their
> assets without considering my opinions on the matter.
>

Then why strut about claiming your opinion is simple rationality and  
a logical extension of the Enlightenment?  Why talk earnestly about  
forcing it on others?

- samantha