That sounds like a lottery for housing, with extra steps? Hypothetical scenario: we have 100 houses, and 200 young families looking for one. Your solution in effect is: let's give 100 houses to the 100 young people with an inheritance. That sounds arbitrary.
Lack of housing is a disconnected problem from inheritance taxes.
> Hypothetical scenario: we have 100 houses, and 200 young families looking for one. Your solution in effect is: let's give 100 houses to the 100 young people with an inheritance
This assumes that each family only gets a single house. With enough wealth you can buy out all the houses (not considering other factors)
Of course? I think we are debating the same side of this point though: "Inheritance is a horrible way to divide prosperity within society, as it doesn't take into account the wants or needs of the people still alive."
If that is not the case, I unfortunately still didn't get your point.
Eddington is a fictional community, with 2 people: Ed and Sue. Unfortunately, due to lack of housing, they only have 1 house. The decision is made to hand it to Sue, because Ed's _parents_ were alcoholics that drank their life away.
The decision is not necessarily wrong. But the reasoning to base someone's fortune on the merits of their parents is very arbitrary. Why not base it on their own merits or needs?
Sure, almost all parents want the best for their children. But not every child has a parent that can or wants to provide the best for them.
You are framing the issue as a right you have for society to provide for your children when you are dead. I am framing the issue as a right everyone has for society to provide for them, irregardless of who their parents were when those parents were still alive.
> I would respect you far more if you candidly admitted that you are violently envious of wealthier and happier families, and wish to manipulate the levers of the state to crush them and steal their property on your behalf.
I don't think that is accurate, but let me try to get as close as possible with something that is accurate:
* I am not envious of people with wealthy and happy families. After all, I have exactly such a family.
* I am empathetic with people that don't have such a family.
* I recognise that there are a lot of the former, who are wealthy beyond their needs due to no merit of their own, while there are a lot of the latter who live below their needs despite their merits.
* I want the state to provide for the poor up to what they need, and to fund it they can take some from the rich who got it without merit.
* Inheritance is the perfect place. After all, the estate is given for neither merit nor need. And the owner of the estate doesn't exist anymore, so has no more moral rights.
You really need to think about all of this a lot more. I know you think you are advocating for nice things but this is evil. It's wrong.
>the owner of the estate doesn't exist anymore, so has no more moral rights
This is psychopathic. By this logic, it's open season as soon as a person's heart stops. Feed the body to your dogs, rape their corpse, burn it, cut it up for fun, set their car on fire, smash your way into their house and shit on the floor... They have no rights, right? So none of this is wrong. There is no victim. No right has been violated.
Here's a little tip for you: You can donate your children's would-be inheritance voluntarily. Nobody is stopping you. If you really believe you haven't earned your wealth, you have no right to it as soon as you're gone, and random strangers deserve it more than your own children, then do that. I fully support that. But leave my family out of it. Stop cowardly nagging the state to carry out your crimes.
Lack of housing is a disconnected problem from inheritance taxes.