[frgtpsswrdlame]

>Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better alternatives. Can someone please help me understand?

A society which doesn't massively privilege the children of the wealthy? What are you having trouble with? We just reduce the influence of class and wealth.

[nugget]

> We just reduce the influence of class and wealth.

How?

Since the dawn of time, people have been split into rich and poor. It seems to be the most persistent bifurcation in the history of human civilization. Even in a society like the USSR, where there was little to no private property ownership, material wealth was controlled by a small cohort of politically-connected individuals who passed their influence to their children.

The best antidote to wealth inequality has been criminality and chaos - plagues, world wars - which seem to be on the decline.

It's easy to target a few thousand billionaires and apply some estate tax to recapture fortunes upon death. But the real reservoir of generational inequality - as you imply it to be - seems more likely to be the hundreds of thousands of upper class families who pass on intensive amounts of educational, cultural, social, and financial benefits to their kids in ways that are harder to track and harder to crack down on, and which no amount of Government programs for the poor are likely to replicate.

With that in mind, what practical steps can you take to meaningfully reduce the influence of class and wealth?

[ars]

> It's easy to target a few thousand billionaires and apply some estate tax to recapture fortunes upon death (and maybe we should do this).

That wouldn't even help.

For example: George Soros. Came from a wealthy family. Utterly destitute after the war. And now he's rich.

Some people simply have that talent, and they pass it on to their kids, both in education, and in genes.

> With that in mind, what practical steps can you take to meaningfully reduce the influence of class and wealth?

Are you sure it's "class and wealth" and not intelligence?

[nugget]

> Are you sure it's "class and wealth" and not intelligence?

I think intelligence is the most important prerequisite, at which point class exerts influence, and then finally wealth - self-made wealth - becomes a reflection of how much of a person's ambition is focused on that area. And luck, of course.

This raises the question of what to do about pre-implantation genetic testing and gene therapies once the genes influencing intelligence can be identified and selected (and eventually modified). I can see a future in which everyone who can afford it reproduces via IVF in order to leverage gene selection, and it's considered socially awkward among the upper class to have a naturally-conceived child (as in, you don't care enough about your child to pay for the best genes). Perhaps when it comes to discussions of inequality, "we ain't seen nothing yet".

[marnett]

yes it is class and wealth. how could you even begin to think otherwise? do you truly think everyone who is rich is just 'smarter' than all other humans?

if so, what particular mechanisms exist for some truly idiotic child born with a trust of $1M, $10M, or $100M to lose their wealth?

> For example: George Soros. Came from a wealthy family. Utterly destitute after the war. And now he's rich.

So he was likely aided by his class, which was never lost when he lost his wealth.

this whole charade that all billionaires in the entire world are geniuses who came from the bottom rungs of society is just a story to instill hope on those ambitious enough to believe there exists meritocratic societies. the media loves to talk about 'new money' billionaires who are, inarguably, quite intellectual (elon, zuckerburg, jobs, etc) - it's just so less sexy to focus on the much larger number of billionaires who just inherited it all...

let me guess, next you're going to tell me that everyone who is a celebrity movie star, tv actor, artist, and photographer is just the most talented in their respective fields and class and wealth had nothing to do with it?

[nugget]

> if so, what particular mechanisms exist for some truly idiotic child born with a trust of $1M, $10M, or $100M to lose their wealth?

The mechanism of humans to spend and consume frivolously. I know plenty of people who are simply uneducated on financial matters and blew through trusts of a few million dollars thanks to accountants and trustees who enabled them to spend in excess of a sustainable withdrawal rate. They aren't too different from lottery winners, many of whom end up broke. That's why I take the view that class and culture > wealth until you start to get into the nine figures range where wealth becomes more self-sustaining, although even then if you look at the top echelon of athletes and celebrities you see similar examples of self-destruction.

[marnett]

The mechanisms that affect newly minted, publicly exposed figures (celebrities, athletes, and lottery winners) is largely predatory investors and money managers. Predators are a lot more successful at taking advantage of poorly educated athletes, etc. Frivolous consumption, which certainly can affect persons of any financial upbringing, is unlikely to have any material impact on those who simply inherit money and do nothing else of value to society. I believe consumerism could be impactful to truly idiotic persons of inherited wealth (with an equally classless, idiotic family surrounding them). A trust fund baby of average intelligence, brought up in a family practicing at least upper-middle class social norms, would likely be perfectly fine.

> That's why I take the view that class and culture > wealth until you start to get into the nine figures

Class, culture, and wealth form symbiosis much before fortunes of 9 figures.

Personally I believe proper taxation structures are much more effective a method to normalize against inherited wealth.

[nugget]

> Frivolous consumption, which certainly can affect persons of any financial upbringing, is unlikely to have any material impact on those who simply inherit money and do nothing else of value to society.

It's just a function of the numbers, isn't it?

A trust fund has $1 million in assets, 1% fees, and beneficiary withdraws $50k (5%) per year. Based on the historical data at firecalc.com, within 30 years, there's a 50% chance the fund has hit $0.

Just in fairness to the non-idiots who depleted their low single digit million trust funds, it's been much more the rule than the exception.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

Separate society into 'spheres.' So for example I'm of the mind that education and healthcare should be totally separate from wealth. You shouldn't be able to buy a better education for your kid and you shouldn't be able to buy better healthcare for yourself. We should all be 'in the same boat' so to speak. In this way the wealthy have to advocate for universal improvements instead of using their wealth to opt out of bad systems.

[nugget]

> You shouldn't be able to buy a better education for your kid

Doesn't this miss the fact that a large amount of education - perhaps the majority of young childhood education - occurs at home, and is influenced by family environment?

How does the Government recreate a two parent household with the time and resources to cook healthy dinners and spend hours every night reading to their children, for children who are essentially "on their own" once they leave school? Is it even reasonable to expect this to be possible (i.e. reduce or replace the influence of families with Government or third-party involvement)?

[frgtpsswrdlame]

>Doesn't this miss the fact that a large amount of education - perhaps the majority of young childhood education - occurs at home, and is influenced by family environment?

Yes. But despite the fact that it misses this it does capture another huge portion of privilege.

>Is it even reasonable to expect this to be possible (i.e. reduce or replace the influence of families with Government or third-party involvement)?

No. Which is why I'm not advocating that... I'm not even sure how you could read that from my comments. You and the few other replys here seem to think I'm Stalin or pursuing something that is 'perfect fairness.' The original question was just about reducing the influence of wealth, not eliminating it entirely.

You'll forgive me for the long wait time, I got rate-limited and couldn't reply for several hours.

[coolsunglasses]

You can't immunize a system to economic and political influence by moving more of it from the economic to the political sphere.

The example of the USSR was already cited, the rich were still rich even though being "wealthy" _formally_ wasn't a thing.

People instead played political games to win positions that brought benefits from the State. Most workers aspired to reach a position that brought with it car ownership.

All of this serves to make the delivering peoples' needs and desires more inefficient and more purely decided by social and political power than by someone's ability to contribute to society.

[ars]

How do you propose to prevent parents from teaching their children?

You also have a built in assumption that education is what causes this success, when I posit it's the result of intelligence, which is the actual driver (and is seen in better results from education).

[itsjustme2]

So instead of a multi-generational meritocracy, you want everyone in the same generation to have the same resources starting out? How do we determine the best resources for each generation? How do we distribute the wealth? How do we keep parents motivated to work when their main motivation is to provide a better life for their children?

[danharaj]

Multi-generational meritocracy sounds antithetical to post-enlightenment thinking. It sounds like someone sneezed while saying "aristocracy".

[itsjustme2]

Calling multi-generational meritocracy the same as aristocracy is a misunderstanding of what these two words mean. Yes, societies are messy, and what happens in one societal structure can sometimes happen in another, but that does not mean that the underlying rules defining the two are equivalent.

[beaconstudios]

that's been tried multiple times (communism/socialism) with generally unpleasant outcomes.

[marnett]

What? Reducing the influence of wealth in a country is not the same as 1) having the state own all property or 2) a state ran for workers

There are numerous ways to reduce that influence without flipping the entirety of our capitalist economic system.

[beaconstudios]

We seem to be trying them without much luck. To be honest I don't really care where the ceiling is, as long as the floor is reasonable.

[marnett]

As far as our success is concerned, I am aligned entirely with you. I think radical change is necessary to slow down the self-destructive capitalist machine that is the U.S.

Unfortunately so many people have been influenced by McCarthyian propaganda that whenever the topic of social and economic reform in the U.S. comes up they simply scream about Stalin and Mao and that is that.