mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan) (03/28/85)
This is a discussion of the problem of inheritance in the Libertarian
ideology. No attempt is made herein to justify Libertarianism, and this
discussion is of limited meaning to those who do not understand
Libertarianism.
The typical beginning for an examination of the problem of inheritance
is to ask 'Where do the rights of the heir come from?' There is the
trivial case where the 'heir' is owed something from the estate in the
context of childhood dependency (say that the deceased has left an infant
daughter), but this is not true inheritance, but rather the payment, from
the estate, of pre-existing obligations. The real question is: How does an
heir obtain FURTHER rights by virtue of the death of the previous owner?
It has been argued that inheritance rights are DERIVED rights, just as
the rights of anyone who has been GIVEN anything are derived from those of
the giver. This is the beginning of an answer, but hardly sufficient,
because the dead (having no volitional capacity, unless one believes in an
after-life) have no rights from which any can be derived! The traditional
conception of inheritance must therefore be scrapped, and an analogue
sought.
One thing that we might try is to say that the transfer (to the heir)
takes place the instant (or some brief unit of time) before death. The
problem here is that, unless the instant before death (as such) has unique
characteristics before death, it does not acquire its relevant identity
until after death (the entitlement chickens have already flown, so to
speak). Are there such charateristics of the instant before death? I am
not aware of any.
In some cases, an individual may know with some precision when (|s)he
is to die, but such cases are the exception rather than the rule.
The individual wishing to pass on h(is|er) property might transfer it
well in advance of expected death, such that (|s)he has a sort-of power-of-
attorney; in otherwords, create a situation where the rights of the
deceased were, in large part, derived from those of the heir! This
analogue seems to me to be ALMOST perfect -- but there's one significant
failing: If the (ultimate) heir dies before the custodian, then the derived
rights of the custodian vanish! I don't know of a way around this.
Now, what of the resources which have ceased to be property? Many
will leap to the suggestion that the government may seize these as a source
of income (this notion is related to Paine's suggestion of a 10%
inheritance tax in *The Rights of Man*). Well, the government can, IF IT
GETS THERE FIRST. The resources in question don't belong to anybody, and
they sure don't belong to the government; they belong to nobody! Which
means that the FIRST party (government or otherwise) to take possession and
put the resources into productive use becomes the new owner.
Back later,
DKMcK