Tweets From Johann Kurtz

The rich should leave their wealth to their children, not to charity. Mick Jagger’s announcement that he would not leave his fortune to his children caused much controversy. A chorus of celebrities have announced the same: "I've told them the same thing my dad told me. My dad says, 'When I die, you can expect that I'm going to die broke, and you're going to be paying for the funeral'." — Guy Fieri (net worth ~$100m) "I just think all an inheritance does is breed laziness and entitlement. I worked hard and I'm gonna spend it all and have fun with my husband." — Marie Osmond (net worth ~$20m) "There won't be much money left because we are spending it! We have a lot of commitments. What comes in we spend, and there isn't much left… They have to work." — Sting (net worth ~$550m) "I am determined that my children should have no financial security." — Nigella Lawson (net worth ~$20m) My basic reaction to these statements is disgust. Many of these celebrities are keen to announce to the world that their wealth will go to charity. What is left unsaid, however, is that they intend to spend the rest of their lives living as some of the wealthiest people on earth. They will not release their riches; death will release their riches for them. Their children will experience the change; they will not - but it is of course the parents who secure the applause. These parents are keen to emphasize that they are giving their children the gift of work - it’s for their own good! The parents are, of course, past the need to work - they have already morally ascended, leaving menial work far behind. No: they can relax. Other celebrity parents will tell you that they’re actually continuing to work themselves (…as stewards of their fame and fortunes - ie. things that are enjoyable to work on). The suggestion that their children inherit this stewardship is, of course, ridiculous: young adults must spend years workin...

...g in meaningless bottom-tier jobs, or else they will be morally ruined. Far better to disperse the estate and to leave the children to fend for themselves. This notion that everything must be broken apart every generation and thrown into the market to churn has a long history in the liberal tradition. Adam Smith - the so called ‘Father of Capitalism’ - railed against entails (legal structures designed to keep estates intact across generations). "Entails are disadvantageous to the improvement of the country, and these lands where they have never taken place are always best cultivated. Heirs of entailed estates have it not in their view to cultivate lands and often they are not able to do it. A man who buys land has this entirely in view and in general the new purchasers are the best cultivators." — Adam Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence Like our celebrities, Smith’s view was predicated on the notion of the importance of 'the work'. Continuously breaking inter-generational structures ensured maximum productivity as hungry new generations sought to secure a fortune for themselves. In Smith’s view, nothing should be sacred or spared from this churn. The market should extend into all domains; productivity is held in higher regard than ‘absurd’ and outdated traditions. Royal forests - wild environments preserved for the excellence of hunting across generations - were a prime example of something that must be destroyed in order to unlock productivity. "…in all the great monarchies of Europe there are still many large tracts of land which belong to the crown. They are generally forest… a mere waste and loss of country in respect both of produce and population. In every great monarchy of Europe the sale of the crown lands would produce a very large sum of money… When the crown lands had become private property, they would, in the course of a few years, become well improved and well cultivated." — Adam Smit...

...h, Wealth of Nations Gone are the royal forests, but think of the agri-businesses that could replace them! I regard this view as entirely autistic. Hopefully this is self-evident, but to this I will return. Many celebrities reassure us that although they are not giving their children their inheritance, they are giving them the gift of a first-class upbringing and education. Let’s play out the consequences of this. Now, instead of a young adult with a first-class upbringing and education gradually taking stewardship of the family estate - a position of influence from which they could positively affect the lives of many people - they will be forced to pursue a lucrative career in order to continue their family lifestyle. Fantastic! The world just gained another financier, lawyer, or management consultant. It is often asked where all the great academic geniuses - the philosophers and scientists whose names echo in history - have gone. Why are we no longer producing them? Part of the answer is surely that our generation’s geniuses design algorithmic trading technologies and social media attention-maximization tools. They have (logically) chosen to maximize the production of the wealth that they were not given. Gone are the gentlemen polymaths. Instead, academia is a desperate, all-out war for funding, with dubious proposals and grant manipulation taking more time and energy than self-funded inquiry pursued for its own sake. The notion that the moral quality of our elites is improved by laundering them through the job market is absurd. A lifetime of spreadsheet work does not make you a better person. Especially if you feel resentful at being robbed of your inheritance. In fact, what is often happening is that bad celebrity parents are attempting to outsource the cultivation of the virtues of discipline and ambition to the job market, rather than succeeding in inculcating these virtues as a parent. The fals...

...e virtue of ‘work-for-work’s-sake’ is an attempt at mitigating bad parenting. Deep down, celebrity parents realize their failure to raise children worthy of power, who can be trusted to be good stewards of their inheritance, and so the parents cut the children off in the bud. But society will always have elites. If one generation hamstrings their children from taking its place - someone else will fill the elite vacuum. The actual effect of this hamstringing is to ensure that our societal elites are perpetually first-generation wealth - ie. the latest obsessive fund manager or entrepreneur to take his morally-dubious tech product to IPO. The tyranny of the nouveau riche. Would Britain be a better place if the royal family sold everything they owned and gave the proceeds to a climate charity? Buckingham Palace could serve as a museum for hordes of half-interested Spanish schoolchildren to visit, or perhaps a nice second home for a Ukranian oligarch who earned his wealth! Yes, the British people would lose one of the cornerstones of their culture, identity, history, and place in the world - but think of the solar panels we could build! Prince William could go and become an optician and become a better person. In fact, why stop there? Why should the British people benefit unjustly from their cultural inheritance and enjoy the sight of lavish, unnecessary palaces which occupy huge parts of valuable real estate in Central London? If we level them, we could sell that land and build a second financial district (which could meritocratically employ the next generation of self-made men) and give the proceeds to the Gates Foundation, so they can do whatever it is that they’re doing (I’m told it advances ‘human flourishing!) Unfortunately, this kind of faceless ‘charity’ removes the donating celebrities from any kind of personal contact with the needy, and any kind of personal responsibility, privation, or work. Wea...

...lth is just vaguely diffused after death, a last self-satisfied gasp. Ultimately: do you trust a faceless organization more than your child? If so - what does that say about the family you have built? One of the key drivers of this process is the modern ‘capitalization’ of wealth. The very rich now hold the majority of their wealth in intangible financial assets rather than land. This has significantly warped how thes (View Tweet)