> The difference between the two is the level of coercion.
I'm not debating the role of the state here, I'm showing that two people are born, one with $10m and one with $0, and that it's ridiculous to argue from such a state of reality that one ought to have a fully incentive based economy when one never has to work a day in their life (except walk to a bank, say '30% in the S&P 500 please, 30% in gold please, 30% in US treasuries please and 10% in a money market account please', and collect his check for the rest of his life), and the other can work 2 jobs like many millions of Americans do and barely scrape by. You'd agree that this is a flawed system, no?
That's a flawed system, and the solution is simple, the government employs coercion. I can't be against that as long as the coercion is on moral grounds, just like coercion is employed in many other situations (e.g. taxation, or prohibition of buying a slave for 10 years even if that person is willing) You mention coercion as if it's inherently a bad thing. Inheritance tax can level the playing field a little bit, where say instead of one kid, through no merit of his own, inherits $10m by bloodright and the other $0, one can inherit $1m (a gigantic advantage) and 9.000 others inherit $10k (a small advantage). That's redistribution of wealth and it's as much 'coercion' as a regular tax rate.
It's not a perfect solution (without flaws) or a complete solution (one that solves every problem), but inheritance tax makes a lot of sense and I reiterate, it's funny people being so hypocritical about it.