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Comment by theGnuMe | Hacker News Reader

The inheritors didn't earn it.

Neither did the government. Why shouldn’t the person who did earn it get to decide what happens to it? After all, they could choose to donate some to the government. No one does though, voluntarily, because we all know that money would get wasted.

“The government” isn’t a fixed entity. It is what people want to be funded. Wealthy Americans donate enormous amounts of money to entities that would be publicly funded in many other countries: universities, hospitals, concert halls…

Everybody wants to give money to something where they get their name on a wall and the envy of their rich peers. Meanwhile projects that could be more beneficial to society but don’t have the prestige factor languish. An inheritance tax would level the playing field.

Not sure what country you’re from, but here in the US tax money does not efficiently get to these projects “beneficial to society”

That’s something people can change by voting, even in America. The Roosevelt administration allocated tax money very differently from the Hoover administration, for example. Whether the New Deal was beneficial to society could be debated, but enough people believed in the change to keep voting for it.

If you'd like a modern tech view of government, think of it as a platform that creates the marketplace (aka an app store) where you pay a tax to do business.

The government doesn't own the money it uses it for the benefit of the rest of us

The government provides physical and legal infrastructure that allows the person who made the money earn it. Society provides a market for whatever goods and services they sell, and collectively pay by suffering environmental and social externalities resulting from business activities.

So?

The question was about fairness. When concentrated wealth goes to a selected individual or group of individuals, it is usually seen as "fair" when it has been earned in some way. This didn't need to be explained, right?

If you're the spouse or child of an earner you technically didn't "earn" their money either, right? Inheritance is the same concept... you work and make money to provide to your family.

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