I completely agree with you and love this important perspective on ‹inheritance/bequest›: “You start receiving the benefits of your inheritance approximately nine months before you’re born, and continue to receive them throughout your life. Any final bequest is just a cherry on top.”
If I broaden the view further and ask myself whom I have to thank for everything that went well in my life, for whatever I am fortunate to enjoy (and why others endure misery), then I know it was all – god-damn/stupid – luck.
In the end, the argument couldn’t be clearer: Whatever someone today enjoys that surpasses the living standard of a baby born in the caves (millennia ago) was made possible not by him-/herself but by humankind – all the generations before and society as a whole. Not 1% of what I have and live from could I have produced if I had been born, say, 20 generations ago. Bill Gates, despite all his great genes, would have spent his entire, probably short and brutish life clothed in fur, gathering fruits, digging roots, and sitting by a fire in a cave – most likely even dying at birth or shortly after. (50% of all human beings ever born died in their childhood: https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality)
It is said that Trump, had he simply invested his inheritance in the 1970s in stocks and from then on only played golf, he would be much richer today than he is after all his “smart” business adventures (called: «hard work»).
In other words: More than 90% of increases in wealth/inheritance aren’t due to any single person’s work but is the work of generations/billions of people. The leaps in wealth (in the millions and billions of dollars) for a single person is due to owning titles (backed by state/court/police/military power) which give them the ‹right› to extract a major/disproporational share of what millions of people produce. In the old days it was – at least – obvious/in plain sight: The king sent his people out to collect a part of the harvest and had him built a castle. The king’s “argument”: This is my land… and if you don’t agree with me, I’ll have your head smashed.
The best way to make a lot of money - start with a lot of money
I completely agree with you and love this important perspective on ‹inheritance/bequest›: “You start receiving the benefits of your inheritance approximately nine months before you’re born, and continue to receive them throughout your life. Any final bequest is just a cherry on top.”
If I broaden the view further and ask myself whom I have to thank for everything that went well in my life, for whatever I am fortunate to enjoy (and why others endure misery), then I know it was all – god-damn/stupid – luck.
In the end, the argument couldn’t be clearer: Whatever someone today enjoys that surpasses the living standard of a baby born in the caves (millennia ago) was made possible not by him-/herself but by humankind – all the generations before and society as a whole. Not 1% of what I have and live from could I have produced if I had been born, say, 20 generations ago. Bill Gates, despite all his great genes, would have spent his entire, probably short and brutish life clothed in fur, gathering fruits, digging roots, and sitting by a fire in a cave – most likely even dying at birth or shortly after. (50% of all human beings ever born died in their childhood: https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality)
It is said that Trump, had he simply invested his inheritance in the 1970s in stocks and from then on only played golf, he would be much richer today than he is after all his “smart” business adventures (called: «hard work»).
In other words: More than 90% of increases in wealth/inheritance aren’t due to any single person’s work but is the work of generations/billions of people. The leaps in wealth (in the millions and billions of dollars) for a single person is due to owning titles (backed by state/court/police/military power) which give them the ‹right› to extract a major/disproporational share of what millions of people produce. In the old days it was – at least – obvious/in plain sight: The king sent his people out to collect a part of the harvest and had him built a castle. The king’s “argument”: This is my land… and if you don’t agree with me, I’ll have your head smashed.
Zactly right. 👍👍