To disagree with inheritance as a concept

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Just that. I think it's odd that the concept of inheritance is barely questioned in our society.

I don't think that anyone can really talk about social mobility in a meaningful way, or interrogate the class system, while wealth is still inherited.

Inheritance IS the class system.

In my opinion, inherited wealth is incompatible with a meritocratic society. It is also add odds with entrepreneurialism, and more generally the notion that wealth is earned through hard work, and thus deserved.

Thoughts?

I sort of agree with the OP, we will not be leaving a lot of money to our children, even though we probably could. We have encouraged our parents to spend all their money rather than leave it to us.

We have received one inheritance lump sum which we used to pay off my DH ex wife's mortage and yes it was helpful to be able to do that, but if it was a choice between us inheriting or that money paying for his care I would rather the latter.

The only problem with that is that we will end up with a two tier care system for the elderly.

one of the many reasons that we will not be passing on a lot of money to our children or grandchildren is that both my DH and I are fiercely ambitious because we had to make it for ourselves. No one was going to buy is that house, pay for our education etc and therefore we had to get tough, ambitious and smart. My children already lack my drive, in part because there life is so much easier than mine.

If I worked hard to earn lots of money and I can't take it with me, I'd rather someone I cared about benefited from it.

However, the current "baby boomer" generation will be the last to inherit anything. Due to an ageing population with a long life expectancy, we can expect people to spend many years in care homes, selling their homes and other possessions to afford the fees.

So your opinion and mine will be pretty irrelevant soon.

Sorry Tig - I missed you. I don't have a fully worked out system ready to roll out! Just interested in exploring the concept.

Of course I think that dependent children would have to be provided for from their parents estate. I think that dependent children are an entirely different issue, to be honest - what with them being dependent and all.

Crumbledwalnuts - I'm completely and utterly unconvinced by evolutionary psychology and using the word 'natural' as a conversation stopper. I also don't think that any behaviour can really be distinguished from a cultural practise. Just because something is a cultural practise doesn't mean it isn't real.

As I said, I don't have any radical solution to hand! It just troubles me that the practise is barely questioned, even while we're sold the message that our financial destiny is the result of our hard work and aspirations.

For what it's worth, I would say that I am not against the inheritance of modest material goods and modest assets, for immediate descendants or next of kin.

I favour inheritance because I favour the family and the fact that it continues as a unit after death.

Socialists and communists who are against inheritance downplay the family and want people to hand over their life's earnings to them so that they can decide to spend it as they choose rather than as the individuals who worked for it chose.

Why should people's life's earnings (after tax) be given to a socialist party that allowed homes to be flipped and expenses for bath plugs to be paid to MPs out of it and which decided to wage humanitarian wars with it?

I'd love my mum to spend her money and enjoy it, but she is obsessed with saving it for when she is frail
and then when she dies, 40% of it will go to the tax man for HIM to piss up against a wall

Talkinpeace, your mum is right, because she fears that those in power won't look after her adequately when she is frail.

I definatly favour inheritance but unfortunately both my and Dhs parents were as poor as church mice.

"Would you also disagree with parents giving any money to their children during their (ie the parents') lifetimes - do you also see that as incompatible with meritocracy and entrepreneurialism?"

To an extent I suppose it is incompatible with meritocracy and entrepreneurialism, but I do think it is better than locking capital away. I'm not against people spending their money in a way that benefits their friends and family. Like tobeornot (though he/she disagrees in other ways) I don't know why people wait till they die to pass it on. It's better for the money to be active, I think.

There are different ways that you could approach this, I think. Some people are imagining a scenario where inheritance is denaturalised by raising inheritance tax to a very high threshold, other people are imagining a scenario where people spend or pass on their wealth much earlier, and leave less to inherit. The two are quite different, I think.

Can't remember who asked about whether or not I think lotteries are 'fair' but...I don't think you can get much fairer than a lottery, really.

Again, I don't want to make this personal, but like other posters I do worry about the effect that the expectation of inheritance will have on DCs ambition and drive. I do respect people with the ambition, talent and skill to earn well, and don't like the idea of DCs being complacent.

So you're not against gifts per se. You just want to restrict the size of them.

Where would you draw the line? You'd suggest 100% inheritance tax, in effect, after a certain level?

You think that someone should just spend the money they have before they die. That's quite a move away from a desire to give a gift for the joy of it.

I do think that giving one's possessions to one's offspring is akin to a gift. You save up to be able to give something special, which you couldn't do during your lifetime.

So if i cant leave all my worldly goods to my family what is going to happen to them?

The state gets them? No thanks as i pay my taxes whilst i am alive so i dont see why they should get whats left when i die but they will take their share in IH tax anyway.

Charity? again no thanks as i choose which /if i want to support a charity.

'For what it's worth, I would say that I am not against the inheritance of modest material goods and modest assets, for immediate descendants or next of kin.'

But why should DC be forced to start from ground zero every generation?
Accumulated wealth is passed on to future generations. The ambitious people who earned it during their lifetimes didn't just earn it for themselves in a selfish manner, they earned it to look after their families and to provide for them. In fact that is a great part of the incentive for earning it.

Why should a government strip them of that incentive and force them to blow all their remaining money up the wall before death instead of passing it on to future generations of their family? Why should it be appropriated by a socialist who did not work for it rather than by a family which was one of the major reasons and incentives for earning it?

I understand that people are attached to the idea that saving up all one's wealth over a lifetime and passing it on to their children is a 'natural' and beneficial thing.

I just don't think there's any point in pretending that this system is in any way compatible with an entrepreneurial or meritocratic society. And people who are entirely happy with that have absolutely no desire to live in a meritocracy. And we might as well be honest about the fact.

"I just don't think there's any point in pretending that this system is in any way compatible with an entrepreneurial or meritocratic society."

But it is compatible with meritocracy because the unit that matters is the family and not the individual . The socialist who is against inheritance is close to arguing that there is no such thing as family and that all that counted was the individual in a meritocratic society.

Funny how the far left starts to look exactly like the far right.

Many on MN both hate the current government whilst wanting to hand over everything to it.

It is odd.

Claig, when people talk about a meritocratic society - or the degree to which our society is or isn't meritocratic - we generally are talking about people's individual capabilities and performances. I don't think anyone, in this day and age, generally wants to be thinking about the merits of dynasties. That's all a bit medieval, thanks. Take it you're a big fan of nepotism too?

I do everything for my dcs' future. I'm not rich by any means, very average in fact. (No inheritance for me). But it's probably not the likes of me you're talking about.

I disagree with people having more wealth amassed than they or their offspring could possibly spend in a lifetime.

Meritocratic society? Never heard of it. Thank goodness.

Who are all these people living on inherited wealth? I've never met anyone who doesn't have to work for a living. I know people who have inherited money upon the death of a relative, but they are not wealthy.

Can you be more specific about your terms? You use privilege and modest. What is meant by each, in rough numbers?

I don't think questioning inheritance necessarily does mean "handing it over to the government" though. There are lots and lots of ways in which wealth can be used.

What does your meritocratic society look like? Who merits what?

If society was arranged as I liked there would be no need for or mechanism for inheritance. Not that it's going to happen any time soon.

My parents have a rather lovely chair in their home that I hope to inherit one day, it belonged to my mum's parents and their parents before that. It's worth about £100, but I think it is beautiful and it has sentimental value.

Should I be allowed to inherit the chair?

What if it were a Chippendale worth £1 million but with a similar back story?

Abolition of inheritance is part of the communist plan to abolish the family. They don't believe in family and wish to destroy its wealth and remove its power and privilege. They want to hand over all wealth and power to a small ruling elite who pretend that they govern in the name of the people.

The following comes from the Communist Manifesto

"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance

....

Abolition [Aufhebung] of the family ! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.

On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain . In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.

The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital."

Unlike the communists, I am for family and for inheritance and against handing over accumulated wealth to a tiny elite who want to destroy family and society because they think they are superior to the little people and their families.

Morris and Waffly - I don't have precise tax bands or the details of a new social order worked out. I'm just kicking this one about.

Waffly, I think you know what people mean by meritocratic, and I think there's a general consensus that a more meritocratic society would be a good thing. It just strikes me as funny that the issue of inheritance is really the elephant in the room whenever anyone wants to discuss social mobility.

I guess if you just love the class system and think that it's brilliant that wealth and privilege flow down blood lines then there's no reason to have any kind of problem with inheritance. A lot of people are kind of over that, though.

What do I mean as a threshold for 'modest', in principle? Not sure. Twice the national median wage?

I wasn't suggesting handing anything over to government particularly not the pile of crooks we have now, so presumably that post wasn't aimed at me, so I'll write on.

I believe in looking after my dcs, I don't have a lot, but they are what I've worked for. Is that a problem for a meritocratic society? Or at least explain what a meritocratic society is?

I think on here we understand what merit and society mean, but what exactly are you trying to say?