[awinder]

"In a market economy, wealth accrues to those who solve people's problems the best."

By passing large sums of money from generation to generation, you end up with a class this won't apply to. It'll be the family of some relative long since past who once upon a time, solved some problem the best.

[clarkmoody]

Is this actually a problem?

Why should I care if someone else inherited family money and doesn't have to work?

Inherited wealth must be invested continually to defend against inflation. That investment will continue to power the market economy, even if the holders of the wealth are not entrepreneurs.

[astazangasta]

>Inherited wealth must be invested continually to defend against inflation. That investment will continue to power the market economy, even if the holders of the wealth are not entrepreneurs.

This assumes that wealth is being invested correctly, and that money acts in some sort of neutral fashion, automatically flowing where it is most needed. In fact, money just shores up wherever there is some sort of place for it to grow.

It turns out that it is much easier for concentrated wealth to use games and tricks of the economic, financial, political system to make money grow than it is to actually invest it in high-risk areas that might provide stronger growth.

The more diffuse wealth is, the less this will be an issue.

[andrepd]

>Is this actually a problem?

Yes. Every dollar in the pocket of a trust fund baby is a dollar missing from an underfunded public school, a homeless relief program, a cancer research center, a library...