Most everybody in the English-speaking world, and especially those of you familiar with Downton Abbey, knows about the law of primogeniture. That would be the one whereby the eldest male child inherits the family's property and titles, and the other children basically get bubkes. Sounds pretty unfair, right? Say you're a second son who feels so slighted by this terrible system that you're determined to switch to something, anything, that doesn't reward somebody so much just for being there first. What would your other options be?
Before the Franks came along and conquered Europe, whatever lands a noble had managed to acquire during his life would generally be split up among his sons on his death. In some cases, these lords would appoint a specific son to be the heir, sometimes even having that son crowned while his father was still alive. Anything, it seems, to ensure a stable succession. However, it rarely worked; generally, on the death of a father, all his sons would fight over his possessions (often going to war or assassinating each other) to decide who would rule. This system was done informally for the most part, although same places actually formalized it (most likely to avoid the bloodshed); that would be called gavelkind succession. The downside of this method of succession is that it makes it very difficult to concentrate power over time, since every generation the holdings of a lord get fragmented once again.
Sometimes, it was considered the height of foolishness to risk a child rising to an important title; children are foolish and easily manipulated! To avoid that, some families instituted seniority succession, in which the oldest male in the family would take over. The chief downside to seniority is that the rulers are unlikely to live very long if they get the job later in life, so there's not as much stability and continuity in the leadership.
In general, I think the idea of a birthright is pretty dangerous. It seems like it would be very difficult to have anything other than a selfish sense of entitlement if you live expecting something to come to you for no other reason than your order of birth. In olden times, though, there weren't really better options; gavelkind was the closest they were able to come to a merit-based system, and you showed your merit there by murdering your brothers.
I have the same concerns about inheritance in the modern age. I can't understand why we bother to respect the wills left behind by the deceased; why should they have any say over the world after their departure? Aren't the living, we of society who are around to be affected, the best choice to decide how someone's legacy should be used?
The democratic response is that we have decided, through our legislatures, and we've decided to honor the wills people leave behind. But there's a concept in property law known as the Rule Against Perpetuities (cue a shudder of dread from all lawyers and law students), and that rule is in place to prevent the deceased from having too much control over the future. To grossly oversimplify it, the Rule Against Perpetuities, prevents wills from having provisions that will affect people who haven't been born yet after they've reached adulthood (and if you disagree with that interpretation, read it really closely and tell me why I'm wrong). It's pretty confusing when you first learn about it, which is why law students hate it.
But I hate it for another reason: it's completely arbitrary. I, for one, don't trust the motivations of the dead in the slightest; it's like the people who wrote these laws never read As I Lay Dying. It infuriates me that a dead person could have any measure of control over my life or the shape of my society.
Perhaps I'm a little too harsh on dead people. I also think that burial is a waste of important land, and that all bodies should forcibly be cremated. Some people claim religious reasons for needing burial, but that's nonsense; nobody would say anything negative about the prospects for resurrection of somebody who was burnt to ash in an accident. And if you claim that you need a burial site in order to grieve properly, that's also hard to argue; many countries in the world practice cremation exclusively, and those nations have no trouble with the grieving process. There's plenty of room for markers without wasting space sticking entire bodies in the ground.
I suppose this post is lacking my usual compassion, but think about it like this: everyone understands why primogeniture is unfair. In fact, everybody understands why any system of noble succession is unfair, because titles of nobility that pass along dynastic lines, rather than by merit, are naturally unfair. So why would we pass modern regalia of the upper class, in the form of money and property, by similarly non-merit-based laws? Why not let the things unearned by their recipients go to the public good?
I realize that there are some strong arguments against this. First, you might say that it sounds socialistic. Note, though, that I never advocated taking money from the living; it's only the dead who've lost their right to control the wealth they had in life. My theory is that our concept of the natural right children have to their parents' wealth is less of a reflection of "what is right" and more an obsolete notion inherited (hyuk) from the obviously unfair laws of succession of past times.
Second, you might say that parents would just give their wealth to their children while they live, thus skirting the problem. And so they might, but perhaps they'd be less inclined to enrich their shiftless children if our society was less accepting of the idea that the children would have received it eventually anyway.
Third, you might say people would be less motivated to accumulate wealth if they had no assurance their children would benefit from it. But this is ridiculous; of course the children will benefit while their parents are alive. And perhaps people would be upset by the uncertainty of the childrens' future should the parents die unexpectedly, but in that case, I'm certain society would have the resources to care for them if we distributed the wealth of the dead in a way that's fair for everybody.
And if people are driven to just spend all their money before death, well, at least it gets put into circulation. I don't really see a downside here, other than a bunch of people whining that they won't be able to affect the world, like ghosts, after they've passed on. And who cares what a bunch of dead people want? They're no longer participants in this journey.
(Naturally, peoples' estates should be settled before their possessions are confiscated for the public good. That guarantees stability while still avoiding the unjust enrichment of rich peoples' kids. The modern world has no room for dynasties.)
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