> The odds were fifty-to-one against me born in the United States in 1930. I won the lottery the day I emerged from the womb by being in the United States instead of in some other country where my chances would have been way different.
This isn't true - the odds of Warren Buffet being born in America, given that his parents were American and had him, were 100%. There's no random chance associated with where you're born - it was the result of what your parents and their parents did. They worked hard to get over to the States, or wherever else, and to make a good life for their kids.
Actually, that whole viewpoint that's come into fashion these days worries me a little. Before, one of the biggest ethics to live for was "making life better for your children" - you'd work hard, and sacrifice, knowing your kids would have a better life than you did. It's what my Great-Grandparents did, what my Grandparents did, what my Parents did. All came up poor, I came up lower middle class, my kids will probably come up reasonably wealthy.
But nowadays, a lot of people write that off as the "birth lottery", or luck, or chance, and think that happiness in your own life, right now, is the highest virtue. They even almost look at it as a bad thing for parents to work very hard for their kids specifically to have the best life they could, calling it things like a birth lottery or random chance. There's nothing random about why I was born in the States, or why my kids will be - it was a direct result of five or six generations of slogging towards a better life from miserable conditions elsewhere.
Ignoring the argument is silly, you don't chose your parents. So, you don't chose the single largest impact on your success but, that's not the issue. The question is "Do we want a society primarily controlled by those who inherited money?" The reason we had huge numbers of smart people become investment bankers was the fact that conning stupid wealthy people is profitable. But, it's also a zero sum game that does little to help society at large. It's far better for society when the most efficient method for gathering wealth is generating it.
> The question is "Do we want a society primarily controlled by those who inherited money?"
There's a Dutch expression, "Clogs to clogs in three generations." It means the first generation, who wears clogs (regular people's shoes), they work hard and make money, they know struggle, they're frugal.
The second generation doesn't know about making money and struggling, but their parents explain what it was like and teach the kids how to manage money and keep the fortune alive.
The third generation doesn't learn these things from their parents, because their parents don't really know either, and the third generation wastes the money and winds up back in clogs - regular people's shoes.
So - will society be controlled by people who inherit money? Not unless there's government backed heredity privilege, like European nobility, the Japanese samurai system, or the Indian caste system. If not, things balance out over time. How many of the astoundingly wealthy families from 1850 are controlling society now without having added anything? Not many.
> The reason we had huge numbers of smart people become investment bankers was the fact that conning stupid wealthy people is profitable.
I would rebut this, but I don't think it's a well thought out view. Some investment bankers moved money around without doing anything of value. Many did incredibly valuable things. They built and developed real estate, ports, railroads - heck, I know a guy who put the money together for researching technology for non-government spaceflight. Pretty cool stuff.
> But, it's also a zero sum game that does little to help society at large.
First, I think it's very easy for someone not inside an industry to claim that their work is useless/easy/unimportant while maybe missing the intricacies in it. Second, I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment, which is that I think the mental concept of "birth lottery" and de-emphasis on family is a scary thing. It seems to say that people should support and even things out for everyone irrespective of what their parents do, while parents working hard to give their children a better life is a huge motivator and has been for almost all time, much more so than improving the common good. If you look at history, for instance, whenever farming was nationalized under a war economy or communism, output fell. People working to feed the nation work less hard than people working for themselves and their children. This has been borne out in many different places, throughout ancient and recent history.
> It's far better for society when the most efficient method for gathering wealth is generating it.
Agreed. Getting back to your original point, I'm not ignoring the "birth lottery" argument - I think it's flawed, and I'm addressing that flaw. The question isn't about who gets to control society, it's about what is the fundamental unit of society? Is it the individual? The family? The community? The nation? The whole planet? The prevailing Western view seems to be focusing on things on a national level. I don't think that's a good thing. I think a mix of individual choice, strong family support structures, and entire planet development is the answer. I think, arguably, the nation is one of the worst places to work on developing humanity.
That's my opinion based on my reading and research into behavior and history, but it seems like societies that empower individuals do well, it seems like societies that promote family do well, and it seems like societies that promote the whole planet do well. It seems where things are controlled by the nation more than by the individual, family, and whole planet do more poorly.
I'm not worried about inherited money controlling the planet, because it really only has a heavy influence in the next generation, many of whom do great things and make their own contributions. After that, without contributions it burns itself out. I am worried about national level empowerment, because it grows on itself and doesn't burn out unless it collapses in a bad way.
This is my opinion based on my readings and research, and I'd be happy to hear others' opinions who agree or disagree.
I've heard that saying as well (only it was "Rags to Riches in three generations, rags to rags in four"), but as far as I can tell, the Rockefellers are still around, still rich, and are at the sixth generation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_family ---the legacy section of that page makes for interesting reading). The Kennedy's are still around, still rich and are in the fourth generation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_family ). History has yet to see what happens to the Bush family ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_family ), currently on the fourth generation.
I think what grandchildren are going to do with money is somewhat random.
My grandfather understood building wealth through investments as do I. However, my mother and older sisters don't. A friend of mine's grandmother had real wealth, as in her home was featured in home and gardens etc. He had a multimillion dollar trust fund and burned out on drugs until he died after his fourth or fifth motorcycle accident.
I know many young people with enough money to never work again and mostly they are fine. But, it's the people with handed great wealth that seem to be hardiest hit by it.
I've no idea why you're being down-voted, let me try to add something which might clarify: yes, Warren Buffet's children are lucky to be the ones born into the family they're in. But from Mr. Buffet's perspective, there's little luck involved in having children. When he decides to have kids, someone is going to be born into that position: there's a ~100% chance that if Warren has children, they'll be born into his family.
As for the dangerous meme of "the ovary lottery": even though it's true and useful in the context of talking about estate tax, it's a very dangerous idea. It's way too easy for that meme to inhibit the idea that "if you work hard and work smart, you can create wealth", which is at the heart of the American dream, and the work ethic of the American entrepreneur. I've known one too many upper middle class kids who slack off all the time, and feel Mr. Buffet's "ovary lottery" somehow implies that the existence of inherited wealth means creating your own wealth is pointless.
Why the hell is this reply, and its parent, being downvoted? They're both insightful opinions by users who have made really insightful contributions here for a while.
This isn't true - the odds of Warren Buffet being born in America, given that his parents were American and had him, were 100%. There's no random chance associated with where you're born - it was the result of what your parents and their parents did. They worked hard to get over to the States, or wherever else, and to make a good life for their kids.
Actually, that whole viewpoint that's come into fashion these days worries me a little. Before, one of the biggest ethics to live for was "making life better for your children" - you'd work hard, and sacrifice, knowing your kids would have a better life than you did. It's what my Great-Grandparents did, what my Grandparents did, what my Parents did. All came up poor, I came up lower middle class, my kids will probably come up reasonably wealthy.
But nowadays, a lot of people write that off as the "birth lottery", or luck, or chance, and think that happiness in your own life, right now, is the highest virtue. They even almost look at it as a bad thing for parents to work very hard for their kids specifically to have the best life they could, calling it things like a birth lottery or random chance. There's nothing random about why I was born in the States, or why my kids will be - it was a direct result of five or six generations of slogging towards a better life from miserable conditions elsewhere.