> Or another example, I own a piece of art or a car passed down through my family that is worth 30 million dollars (maybe it's a mclaren f1 or something).
There is no meaningful reason that a society should want you to inherit a piece of art or a car from your ancestors. (The only practical one is that the sorts of families who can pass down expensive art also control society.)
You didn't work for that art or car; you simply had the fortune to be born into a family with one. Every single reason why it is unjust for someone to inherit a government role applies here. If you don't think King James the Nth should rule simply because King James the N-1st did, why do you think James Jr. should have 30 million dollars in financial power simply because James Sr. did?
Just like hereditary rule, hereditary property breaks the fundamental relationship between work and reward that is common to any functional society. If you work hard and get a spare $30M to buy a car, sure, whatever, we can say you were incentivized to work hard and produce $30M of value. But if you work hard and give your kid $30M, how is your kid incentivized to do anything?
And the argument that well-off parents have an inherent right to make their kids' lives easier leads directly to the correlation between class and race/caste. If it's moral for me to make my children better off than others' children, who is to say it's immoral for me to make my nieces and nephews several times removed better off, too? Who is to say it's immoral to make all the people in this town who came from a certain ancestral lineage better off?
And on top of all that, it usually doesn't even work. We associate "nepotism" with waste and corruption, not just distasteful behavior, because we understand those who are chosen because of their family relationships generally aren't more qualified than the rest of the candidates. Even at the smallest scales, when you hear stories of the CEO's college-age kid getting an internship, it's almost always the case that the child has not inherited any particular talent, and in fact is probably less talented than would be needed for the job.
Parents should be allowed to provide for their children to set them up for adulthood - they should be able to pay for housing and food and clothing and education. When they can't, society should step in to help them, and we're almost there: we have welfare programs and private charities for basic needs, free public education, and (at least among private colleges with sufficient endowments) full need-based financial aid. Parents should not be able to do more than that, in a society that prizes democracy and equality over the natural superiority of certain families.
There is no meaningful reason that a society should want you to inherit a piece of art or a car from your ancestors. (The only practical one is that the sorts of families who can pass down expensive art also control society.)
You didn't work for that art or car; you simply had the fortune to be born into a family with one. Every single reason why it is unjust for someone to inherit a government role applies here. If you don't think King James the Nth should rule simply because King James the N-1st did, why do you think James Jr. should have 30 million dollars in financial power simply because James Sr. did?
Just like hereditary rule, hereditary property breaks the fundamental relationship between work and reward that is common to any functional society. If you work hard and get a spare $30M to buy a car, sure, whatever, we can say you were incentivized to work hard and produce $30M of value. But if you work hard and give your kid $30M, how is your kid incentivized to do anything?
And the argument that well-off parents have an inherent right to make their kids' lives easier leads directly to the correlation between class and race/caste. If it's moral for me to make my children better off than others' children, who is to say it's immoral for me to make my nieces and nephews several times removed better off, too? Who is to say it's immoral to make all the people in this town who came from a certain ancestral lineage better off?
And on top of all that, it usually doesn't even work. We associate "nepotism" with waste and corruption, not just distasteful behavior, because we understand those who are chosen because of their family relationships generally aren't more qualified than the rest of the candidates. Even at the smallest scales, when you hear stories of the CEO's college-age kid getting an internship, it's almost always the case that the child has not inherited any particular talent, and in fact is probably less talented than would be needed for the job.
Parents should be allowed to provide for their children to set them up for adulthood - they should be able to pay for housing and food and clothing and education. When they can't, society should step in to help them, and we're almost there: we have welfare programs and private charities for basic needs, free public education, and (at least among private colleges with sufficient endowments) full need-based financial aid. Parents should not be able to do more than that, in a society that prizes democracy and equality over the natural superiority of certain families.