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Comment by bsheir74 | Hacker News Reader

"My motivation for accumulating wealth is largely driven by a desire to provide for my future family members. inheritance tax is theft."

So its bad because it would hurt you.

This is the problem. The way you think. Estate taxes could pay for services that help the poor and inprove our society as a whole. But you're only concerned with making sure your own kids get out ok.

But thats your job as a parent. I get it. You see a dog eat dog world out there, and you wanna get your kids out alive. But just why are we so scared? Why is everyone fighting over scraps?

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"Hurts me is bad" is an excellent line of reasoning; I can hardly imagine a valid reproach. You can't dictate to another person that what hurts them is good.

> But you're only concerned with making sure your own kids get out ok.

I can't speak for grandparent, but I'm concerned with all the kids getting their rightful inheritance from all their respective parents, not only my kids.

That said, I don't think there is anything wrong with providing for your kids and not others.

There is nothing “rightful” about a 100 million dollar inheritance (or whatever). Just like there is nothing “rightful” about inheriting a royal throne. Money is an arbitrary social convention, and wealth is generated by the whole society not by single individuals.

Inheritances that provide centuries of descendants with a work-free life and the power/influence to corrupt the government make a grotesque mockery of our society / politics.

The main reason there is nothing rightful about inheriting a royal throne is that there is nothing rightful about holding it in the first place.

That's the point: there's nothing self-evidently "rightful" about holding $100m either, and there are multiple political/economic systems practiced today that would consider it unjust.

"all the kids getting their rightful inheritance from all their respective parents, not only my kids."

Some kids dont get an inheritance. Some get a huge one. None of it is "rightful"... Its not deserved. Its not based on need or on merit. Its based on who your parents are. There are few things less democratic.

"That said, I don't think there is anything wrong with providing for your kids and not others."

In the context of widening inequality, your sentence should read "at the expense of others". Im not opposed to inheritance per say but it should be highly taxed.

Some kids with a rich parent also don't get an inheritance; the faithful butler gets everything. It's not necessarily true that there is no element of merit.

> There are few things less democratic.

Many of them are important to be that way: like who is permitted to enter your home; who gets to touch you and so on. Should that all be more democratic?

The modern sense of "democracy" refers to concepts like constitutional representation and controlled use of force.

If a mob decides that access to your pockets should be open to everyone, that is not democracy in the modern sense.

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