A Biblical Critique Of Egalitarian Inheritance Practice
This is an excerpt from a Forbes article with an interview at the end. Interesting read and listen.
Ask a successful entrepreneur for some thoughts about economic egalitarianism and you're likely to hear an unhesitating denunciation. Themes such as equal opportunity vs. equal outcomes, lack of incentives, unfairness, dependency, etc. will come tumbling out of the typical wealthy business leader's mouth. But shift the topic to inheritance and, all of a sudden, egalitarianism is just dandy. Wealthy people default to equal inheritance for everyone. Four kids? The math is easy: .25 times the body of the estate. Say the oldest daughter is a saint who calls every week, carries on the faith and ethical tradition of the parents, raised terrific grandchildren, and lives modestly, but the youngest daughter is a hellion who is deeply in debt, hasn't talked to mom or dad in years, gives to no charities and has never settled down. That's pretty much the situation which financial planner Jim Wise saw in the life of an acquaintance. Strangely enough, the executive was planning equal inheritances for them. This was no surprise to him; almost every situation he'd ever seen was the same – egalitarian inheritance.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2017/11/30/a-biblical-critique-of-egalitarian-inheritance-practice/amp/
Ask a successful entrepreneur for some thoughts about economic egalitarianism and you're likely to hear an unhesitating denunciation. Themes such as equal opportunity vs. equal outcomes, lack of incentives, unfairness, dependency, etc. will come tumbling out of the typical wealthy business leader's mouth. But shift the topic to inheritance and, all of a sudden, egalitarianism is just dandy. Wealthy people default to equal inheritance for everyone. Four kids? The math is easy: .25 times the body of the estate. Say the oldest daughter is a saint who calls every week, carries on the faith and ethical tradition of the parents, raised terrific grandchildren, and lives modestly, but the youngest daughter is a hellion who is deeply in debt, hasn't talked to mom or dad in years, gives to no charities and has never settled down. That's pretty much the situation which financial planner Jim Wise saw in the life of an acquaintance. Strangely enough, the executive was planning equal inheritances for them. This was no surprise to him; almost every situation he'd ever seen was the same – egalitarian inheritance.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2017/11/30/a-biblical-critique-of-egalitarian-inheritance-practice/amp/
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