I'm not a Republican! I just don't think Rawls defends an inheritance tax very well!

This blog post is a response to Kara’s post called “The fading American dream.” Like Kara, I was also initially skeptical of Rawls. Kara’s post talks about Rawls’s idea that the inheritance tax serves to maintain background justice by preventing the excessive concentrations of private power. She points out that an analysis of the Forbes 400 list shows that there are wealthy dynasties that accumulate and pass on wealth over generations, and she believes this is proof for Rawls’s claim that measures like an inheritance tax are necessary to maintain background justice. In my blog post, however, I want to contend that examining Rawls’s premises shows that an inheritance tax is not necessary to maintain the justice of background conditions.


Rawls’s two principles of justice are first that everyone has equal rights to basic liberties and second that inequalities are arranged such that they benefit the least advantaged members of society and inequalities are attached to positions that are open to all people. According to Rawls, “adjustments” (37) like the inheritance tax are “specified by what is necessary to fulfill the two principles of justice” (37). However, it is simply not clear why the accumulation of wealth through generations starts to violate the two principles of justice. It seems like Rawls wants to say this:


1. Individuals acquire unequal amounts of wealth in a lifetime. (This is justified as long as the inequality benefits the least advantaged members of society)

2. Individuals pass unequal amounts of wealth to subsequent generations through inheritance.

3. This unequal accumulation of generational wealth interferes with the fair equality of opportunity.

4. The second principle of justice is that inequalities benefit the least advantaged members of society and that advantageous positions are open to all people (i.e. fair equality of opportunity). 

5. Thus, the unequal accumulation of generational wealth interferes with the fair equality of opportunity.

6. Thus, the unequal accumulation of generational wealth is not just.

7. Thus, adjustments like the inheritance tax are necessary to maintain just background conditions.


The key premise here is #3, the claim that unequal accumulation of generational wealth interferes with fair equality of opportunity. It seems to me that in the United States presently this premise is true. Families with considerable wealth have access to opportunities for their children that are not necessarily open to everyone. However, isn’t the problem then with patronage and preferential hiring/admissions processes that favor families with considerable wealth rather than the accumulation of generational wealth in itself? Therefore, wouldn’t a more appropriate “adjustment… to fulfill the two principles of justice” (37) merely be the abolishment of these preferential hiring/admissions processes? The argument I presented above does not justify an inheritance tax because an inheritance tax is a violation of property rights that is not necessary to maintain background justice since clearly the abolishment of preferential treatment of wealthy children would secure fair equality of opportunity.


Comments

  1. Kenneth OwusuFebruary 24, 2022 at 3:11 AM

    I think that what you're saying falls within the scope of Rawls argument. As you said, families with considerable wealth are able to afford better opportunities for their children especially when it comes to education. Let's consider a family who has inherited this considerable wealth and is able to afford send their child to a private school, get them a tutor, pay for SAT prep- they've essentially guaranteed the child the best opportunity to obtain any position they want. So when they go to a job interview and are able to list all of these accreditations, it seems likely that they will get the job. Consider then a low-income family who isn't able to afford any of the stuff listed above. Their child goes to an underfunded public school, isn't taught everything they need, can't apply for colleges (because that costs money.) So now this child isn't afforded the same opportunities as the child of the rich family. Both of these children were born in situations that they didn't choose and with resources that they didn't earn. Why then should the rich child receive these unequal benefits due to their unearned advantages? In sum, the preferential hiring/admissions process you're referring to comes as a result of their unearned advantage that the rich family who inherited this money got. To get mitigate that would be to redistribute that advantage in a way that also benefits the child who was born with unearned disadvantages. Your proposal falls within Rawls theory as a more concrete plan. I also think this is even more important when you consider the historical landscape of the U.S and how certain demographics (white folk) obtained massive amounts of wealth and pass it down through methods that wasn't even available to other demographics. I'm think specifically about how Black people were denied housing loans by banks allowing homeownership to become a privilege to white people. This is particularly important because homeownership is a major way of wealth accumulation (which can be passed down) and how property taxes play into how funded schools are in the neighborhood which determines the opportunities available to children. While Rawls I agree with Rawls argument for an inheritance tax, I stand that an even larger method of redistribution is necessary to have a Just and fair society

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