Abstract
For the first time since America’s founding, in a nation founded in large part on the rejection of a fixed nobility determined by birth and perpetuated by inheritance, America is paving the way for the creation of dynastic family wealth. Abolition or evisceration of the Rule Against Perpetuities in over half the states along with the likely repeal of the federal estate tax mean that there are no obstacles to creating large pools of wealth that will insure lavish incomes to lucky heirs for generations without end. The timing of these legal changes could hardly be worse. Marshaling innovative economic data extending back centuries, Thomas Picketty convincingly argues that the relatively egalitarian incomes enjoyed in developed economies from World War II until around 1980 were an aberration and that we are in the process of returning to the historical norm of much greater income and wealth inequality …
Kades, Eric A, Of Piketty and Perpetuities (October 20, 2017).
First posted 2017-10-24 06:27:42
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