Inheriting the Wound

Professor J,


I can't disagree with your thoughts this week on estate taxes at all, which means you are on the verge of getting to have the last word on this entire book discussion. ;)

I have a thing or two to add, however. Would you expect anything else at this point? :)


I like Buffet's boiled down view on leaving an inheritance that he has mentioned in other interviews, which is that children should be left enough to do whatever they want (Given his practical nature I'm sure he means something like starting a business or launching a charity) but not enough to do nothing. We've seen time and again the tragic result of having enough to do nothing.

As we've discussed before (and are sure to again) our culture is incapable at this point of determining what is enough in any area of life. The media and our celebrity worshiping society feed the ridiculous idea that self worth can be found in a six-hundred dollar hand bag or the newest, fastest, shiniest car. Yet studies show repeatedly that happiness cannot be purchased and that if you are going to spend in an effort to buy happiness, it's better to invest in an experience (like taking in a movie, visiting a museum, or traveling).

Once basic necessities of life are met (according to Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University that can be done for about forty-thousand a year) increases in wealth account hardly at all in relation to how happy people are. For those, not only with enough wealth to buy whatever they want, but to know that they could never spend it all (and as you've pointed out you can't take it with you -- how disappointed those Egyptian elites must have been!) to want to hold on to as much of it as they can, can only lead us to believe that at some point it stops being about the money and it becomes about the power, control, and influence that comes with enormous wealth, as you've alluded to.

The Kennedy clan did a better than average job of instilling in their offspring the idea that they were socially responsible and should be involved in public service (most of the credit for that seems to go to the Kennedy women). We are however much more likely to see a Paris Hilton type creature emerge from the posh playroom of vast wealth. I think we can all agree we don't need more of that. Given that the odds seem to be against one's heirs living well adjusted, productive lives when large unearned fortunes are dropped in their laps, one has to wonder why wealthy families choose to perpetuate something that has the potential to be so damaging. Of course all of this is on a personal level aside from the negative results you've laid out for society in general and a democracy in particular.

As for the "luck" involved in the success of a Gates or a Buffet I would refer you and our readers to an interesting book by Malcolm Gladwell (of Tipping Point fame) called The Outliers. He makes a very convincing case for just the combination of circumstances being involved in success as Buffet outlines in his remarks. Here are a couple of quotes:


"The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today? To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success - the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history - with a society that provides opportunities for all. "

"Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung...We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by “we” I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn’t."

Before we give historical accidents and society too much credit however, another major theme of Gladwell's book is that the individual who would seek to achieve mastery in any skill from playing the violin to playing at Wimbledon had better plan on putting in a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice.  That, he says, is the key amount of time necessary for the kind of success that launches one ahead of the pack. That kind of dedication indicates an intense  passion for whatever the activity is. Stellar success seems to be an almost magical (and certainly rare) combination of circumstances and desire.

I wonder if  "the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made" play a weightier role in our American psyche than other populations. One too many Horatio Alger stories in our collective, yet sternly individual fantasies?

As you've ended your post with a Franklin quote, and a wise one at that, I can't help be reminded that he is also credited with saying:

Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.