Inheritance of Wealth

Abstract

This book presents a philosophical analysis of inherited wealth: it examines both the moral foundations of the right to bequeath wealth and the case for restricting that right with an inheritance tax. The book seeks to approach inheritance as a challenge with much contemporary significance but draws on ideas from the history of political philosophy. The positive proposals that emerge count as a sort of hybrid between luck egalitarian and social egalitarian conceptions of justice, with some sensitivity to utilitarian and libertarian insights. Chapter 1 lays out the main arguments and motivations in brief. Chapters 2 and 3 survey a variety of arguments from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, with a view to establishing which insights have enduring force. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 assemble an egalitarian case for restricting inherited wealth, though many particular egalitarian conceptions are rejected. The main positive point to emerge in these chapters is that unrestricted inheritance is unjust to the extent that it enables and enhances the intergenerational replication of inequality. Here, inequality is understood in a group-based sense: the unjust effects of inheritance are principally in its tendency to concentrate certain opportunities into certain groups. This results in economic segregation. Concern about this tendency represents a modification of a somewhat stronger but less precise concern about the role of inheritance in perpetuating class hierarchy. Chapters 7 and 8 engage, somewhat more piecemeal, with arguments from the libertarian tradition and with certain questions about the design of taxation schemes.