A man is born poor but motivated, builds up a financial empire.

His sons never have to work and never learn how to. They piss away the fortune.

His grandsons are in rags again.

Great fortunes take longer to vanish, but the usual difference is that there gets to be several middle generations. If the fortune is large and the money is tied up in ways that the inheritors cannot readily waste, there might be quite a few such middle generations. The problem comes when someone gets the bright idea of manipulating the political system to make the wealth travel further. Then we wind up having to deal with someone like George III. (Pick either one - both were bad for America.)

About capitalism, I firmly believe that "wealth" and "ownership" are societally created ideas. It isn't that they are granted to us by the government, it is that both government and ownership are powerful fictions created by people. So if we're going to make up rules, I'd like to see rules made up that tend to do well for people.

Now the fact is that capitalism, for all of its shortcomings, is pretty darned effective. Therefore in general I'm a capitalist. However capitalism is not, for me, a root value. Therefore I'm in favour of deviations (eg taxes) from a purely capitalistic society if I see a lot of value in them. The idea of the estate tax is a deviation that I'm in favour of. (That said, I would like to see the level at which it kicks in raised.)

However I'm against interventions that I think bring bad consequences and no good results. For example confiscating everyone's possessions upon death would be a horrible idea because I believe that the government will generally handle that property less effectively than private owners will. Furthermore saying that that is OK far too conveniently leads to abuses from the people in power.

(Unfortunately, very few of my positions fit on a postcard...)

Cheers,
Ben