More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
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Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#2What's interesting about this is that it barely scratches the surface.
Assets and money are just some of the things that people inherit from their parents. Many people inherit their entire careers from their parents through social connections - These people would probably be classified as 'self made' which makes the statistics seem more benign than they actually are.
I bet if you counted out all those people who were raised with a silver spoon, the percentage of real 'self made' people would probably be less than 1%.
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#3that's kind of why my family left...
failed revolution in the 1800s...
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#4> Fascinating chart: more than half of all private wealth has been inherited in Germany, UK, Switzerland, France — trend: rising fast!
> Ever less private wealth is accumulated through own work, increasingly more through inheritance.
A massive part of people's motivation to work is to provide for their children. That an increasing portion of wealth is inherited rather than build in an individual's working life-time is indicative that the system is function as intended.
The graph seems to indicate there was a bit of a golden area after WWII up until the early nineteens, and that the nations included on the graph are returning the regular state of affairs.
But what does any of this mean?
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#5> Fascinating chart: more than half of all private wealth has been inherited in Germany, UK, Switzerland, France — trend: rising fast! > Ever less private wealth is accumulated through own work, increasingly more through inheritance. A massive part of people's motivation to work is to provide for their children. That an increasing portion of wealth is inherited rather than build in an individual's working life-time i…
As always it's about moderation.
Saving wealth to take care of your children is one thing but this much seems excessive and ultimately means that inequality will continue to increase as wealth is trans-generationally hoarded.
Massive inequality also portends social unrest, plagues due to people who can't afford medical care, wars, etc etc
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#6I was just discussing this as a result of watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-asltUUvcGU in which they discuss the result of the western capitalist system loosely resembling a meritocracy, except in the case of inherited wealth.
An exceptionally productive individual can generate billions, but then when he dies the money goes to his heirs which may not have done anything to deserve commanding that much wealth other than having been raised by (and having the genetics of) the exceptionally productive individual, which is a far cry from being exceptionally productive themselves.
My thought was to create a cap on inheritance. Enough so that the heirs would be able to live a normal middle class life without working, but not be disgustingly wealthy like the parent. ~$5 million seemed like enough to live off interest for a lifetime. I don't think productivity would be disincentivized too much by this, as the productive individuals still get to use their wealth as long as they're living. It'd probably be pretty difficult to plug all the loopholes but I think it's worth thinking about.
edit: another thing, we could lighten some other taxes (income, property, whatever) for this increased death tax such that the overall government tax income remains roughly the same, to make the proposal more palatable. Overall, everyone keeps more of their wealth, and the playing field is leveled and we're a bit closer to an actual meritocracy.
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#7> Fascinating chart: more than half of all private wealth has been inherited in Germany, UK, Switzerland, France — trend: rising fast! > Ever less private wealth is accumulated through own work, increasingly more through inheritance. A massive part of people's motivation to work is to provide for their children. That an increasing portion of wealth is inherited rather than build in an individual's working life-time i…
Modern inheritance should be inherently dissipative, as the estate is repeatedly divided among the heirs, amplified by death/inheritance/estate taxation. The problems arise when the wealth accumulation overpowers the dissipative effect of inheritance, combined with increasingly absurdly high wealth levels that go far beyond providing for children and grandchildren.
As for the "golden area" you mentioned; yes, the war(s) did function as great equalizing wealth redistribution force. Arguably bit of a blunt instrument to accomplish that.
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#8I was just discussing this as a result of watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-asltUUvcGU in which they discuss the result of the western capitalist system loosely resembling a meritocracy, except in the case of inherited wealth. An exceptionally productive individual can generate billions, but then when he dies the money goes to his heirs which may not have done anything to deserve commanding that m…
I love this. It's about moderation. That's how.the estate tax is supposed to function.
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#9> Fascinating chart: more than half of all private wealth has been inherited in Germany, UK, Switzerland, France — trend: rising fast! > Ever less private wealth is accumulated through own work, increasingly more through inheritance. A massive part of people's motivation to work is to provide for their children. That an increasing portion of wealth is inherited rather than build in an individual's working life-time i…
A massive part of people's motivation to work is to provide for their children. >That an increasing portion of wealth is inherited rather than build in an individual's working life-time is indicative that the system is function as intended.
No, it just signals that the tax system treats unearned income and wealth more favourably than earned income. Political choices.
How you feel about that depends upon how you feel about in increase in unearned income flowing to the wealthy I guess.
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#10I was just discussing this as a result of watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-asltUUvcGU in which they discuss the result of the western capitalist system loosely resembling a meritocracy, except in the case of inherited wealth. An exceptionally productive individual can generate billions, but then when he dies the money goes to his heirs which may not have done anything to deserve commanding that m…
Most of this wealth probably has nothing to do with merit. For every Steve Jobs there's a whole bunch of people who did nothing more than sit on property that appreciated in value and yielded rents.
The tax system seems to prefer this to actually earning money for some reason.