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Monday
September 19, 2005

Machan's Musings - Inheritance, Capitalism, Freedom, & Responsibility by Tibor R. Machan

So, your parents left you with something very valuable -- an estate, a farm or firm, or a bunch of stocks and bonds, or cash. Whether you do right or wrong by these is in your hands in a bona fide free society. And that is true even if you were just born pretty or witty or otherwise appealing to the rest of us, so that we throw money at you to gain your services on magazines covers or in comedy clubs. There is, in other words, no end of uneven starts in life -- that’s why it is utterly silly to complain that life’s unfair. That is just the way it is, much like the weather. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (16 messages)

Monday, September 19 - 3:19am

Eloquent as always, Tibor. Your best article in a while.

So many conflate wealth with simple inheritance. I always remind them that a fool and their money are soon parted.

Inherited wealth, like all things in the market, soon finds it's own level. And nothing is wasted. In fact, I think that found money is soon made the best of by those who can see it's true value regardless of it's font.

Inherited monies are a bit like savings. There to be used and soon used by those who will render them best. Witness the much-maligned carpetbaggers post Civil War.

Ross

Monday, September 19 - 6:35am

To begin with, we do in fact inherit many of our assets and do not earn them -- our good looks and health, if we have them; our talents; even much of what constitutes our personality, something that often helps us make our way to a certain measure of success in our lives.

This reminds me. I have been giving a lot of thought to Tabula Rasa lately. Much of Objectivism rests upon this concept. But, anyone who has ever been a parent knows that infants exhibit personalities, particular behaviors, from the minute they open their eyes. It's even true of a litter of pups or kittens. What are we to make of this? How much is inherited?

Have you written on the subject of Tabula Rasa?

Monday, September 19 - 6:36pm

Tibor-
Thanks again for your consistent and well written articles. I do have to take slight exception to this one though. You said:

And it is true enough -- a notorious number of beneficiaries of inherited wealth seem to be quite undeserving.

I'll try to dig up the sources, but from all I've heard only about 2-5% of America's millionaires inherited their wealth. To me the article seems to be playing into the hands of those who wish everyone to believe that wealth is not created through achievment, but is somehow magically passed down throught the years. The statistics show that those who inherit their wealth are not a 'notorious number', but damn near a statistically insignificant number.

Monday, September 19 - 7:02pm

Jody, change Tibor's "number" to "percentage" and I think you'll get his meaning. At least, that's how I read it.

Monday, September 19 - 7:11pm

Rick-
A good point, and upon contemplating it further I probably stand corrected in that regard. I still think apologetics for the small minority of people who inherited their wealth is not the way to go. I believe an elucidation of the norm, which is achievement, would be a better approach to the battle.

Monday, September 19 - 7:16pm

And all of this comes with the caveat that it is easy to nit-pick Tibors articles because he puts himself on the line almost daily for us. For this, my glass is always raised high for Tibor Machan and his guts and prolific determination.

Tuesday, September 20 - 5:06am

Yes, I was concerned mainly to address the critics who make a great deal of any inherited wealth, even if the percentage of those who inherit their wealth is miniscule. Moreover, some, like the late John Rawls, fretted a lot about inheriting favorable traits of any kind, even of character!
As to the issue of tabula rasa, the crucial point, at least in Objectivism, is whether any conceptual knowledge is innate. Rand disputed this because she held that such knowledge has to be obtained by an individual's mental effort--by focusing, integrating, differentiating and so forth--so how then could it be innate? Such mental effort cannot be made without the agent having (a) the faculty enabling him or her to think and (b) the initiative or willingness to apply this faculty. What is often claimed now, namely, that infants show various personality traits very early in life, even in the womb, does not contradict these Randian points.

Tuesday, September 20 - 6:02am

Tibor,

What is often claimed now, namely, that infants show various personality traits very early in life, even in the womb, does not contradict these Randian points.

Thank you for responding to my question. According the Objectivism, as I understand it, personality traits are based upon premises accepted and the decisions about value that result from them. If we accept that these are 'from birth' do we conclude the traits are hereditary or that cognition begins in the womb?

Tuesday, September 20 - 10:32am

Since consciousness does not begin until one is born, then yes, by your structuring, those traits are hereditary... and consciousness is required before there be cognition.

Tuesday, September 20 - 1:49pm

Robert,

Yes, of course, but it doesn't fit too well with tabula rasa.

Tuesday, September 20 - 2:08pm

Tendencies and possibilities in a personality may be genetically determined, just as height, eye and hair color are.

If you are born with a low testosterone level, and a low number of seratonin receptors in your brain, you are unlikely to be aggressive, or particularly happy on a day to day basis. This says NOTHING about the important stuff--how you CHOOSE to live your life. If you conciously determine that you need to be more agressive in your career to succeed, then you do it. If being a gloomy gus is not getting you closer to your goals, you focus on the positive.

Your personality becomes what you make of it. The premises you hold shape who you are.

So, it depends on what you mean by tabula rasa. No one is utterly a blank slate. Every human being's means of survival is their ability to reason. Teaching a person differenct doesn't make it untrue. A person born with a low IQ can do many things to educate themselves and even raise their tested IQ. But they are born with the tools they are born with. How they use them is much more important.

To me, the concept means that people are not necessarily born with immutable traits that pre-determine their lives.

Tuesday, September 20 - 2:15pm

Davison --

It fits perfectly. These traits of heredity are not a priori cognitive concepts. They are simply inherent in the biological nature of the specific infant. Actual knowledge (concepts) can only be obtained via perceptual experience. We are able to experience existence only because we are conscious of things that exist. Before we were born we are not conscious and thus we are born with a conceptual blank slate.

- Jason

(Keep in mind that when I say "born" I am not necessarily refering to leaving the womb. I am refering to the point at which an infant becomes conscious)

(Edited by Jason Quintana on 9/20, 3:33pm)

Tuesday, September 20 - 2:21pm

I can certainly attest that Rand never meant tabula rasa to be taken in the broad sense that so many seem to be wanting to do so [perhaps as setting a straw dog in seeking to defeat the notion entirely]... it was in reference to knowledge acquired that she meant, and it was in reference to cognitive - that is, conscious - mental activity that knowledge is attained, whatever the propensities each given being possesses upon being born.

Tuesday, September 20 - 3:10pm

Personality traits aren't based on premises or such, character traits are. Personality traits are--for example, being quiet, exuberant, extraverted or intraverted, These are evident in infants who do not do any thinking or choosing of values.

Tuesday, September 20 - 7:49pm

Quintana,

That's the party line alright.

Tuesday, September 20 - 7:51pm

Tibor,

Excellent point, that clears up this heredity business for me. Thank you.