Governmet Ownership and Inheritance

I was posed a very interesting question by my dad on the subject of political philosophy: what if there was a system of government where when a person died, their belongings, wealth, property, and all other possessions were claimed by the government so that it could be redistributed between the people. In other words, what if there was no inheritance?

One of the major motivational factors for accumulating wealth is so one can pass it on to the next generation. By taking away that motivational factor, it will take away the the will to get better jobs and better positions and will ultimately lead to the stagnation of economy.

The biggest question that this system brings up is: who owns the properties and the possessions of the people? The idea of ownership is just an illusion in this system. A person is allowed to rent property from the government, the lease of which expires upon the death of an individual. Even the loophole where a person, upon finding out that he or she has cancer, or is extremely old, and decides to give away their possessions to their next of kin, is eliminated; which further solidifies the fact that the government owns the property.

This idea of government ownership of all property is eerily similar to the tried and failed idea of public ownership; the only difference being that in the system of government ownership, people have the choice to earn and spend money as freely as they want. In our modern world, even the slightest restrictions of fundamental rights like inheritance would lead to a kind of economic claustrophobia.

Not allowing inheritance would lead to the hiding of family heirlooms, money, etc. History proves that in every system where a law or rule is thought of as unfair, people break them. Take the prohibition of alcohol for instance: when alcohol became prohibited in the US, the lucrative business of illegally selling alcohol became popular. Along with the black market came crime, immense amounts of money being spent to enforce it, and an overall failure of the amendment, which ultimately led to its repeal. It can only be assumed, that is enough people are unhappy with the elimination of inheritance, a similar state of chaos would ensue.

In such a system, not everyone would have a fair share of the combined wealth of the deceased. There would have to be an agency in charge of the appropriation of wealth, and it is assumed that it would have to be quite large. Every agent employed by such an agency would have the power to uneven the odds. Every agent would be able to misappropriate the wealth and tip the favors to their friends and family. Even is the government could allocate wealth, it is assumed that with so many variables ie each agent, paperwork, accidents, etc. , it would not be done fairly. After all, in every society, no matter how equal its members claim to be, some people are more equal than others. Also, the system would fail because the manpower required to regulate wealth would be so immense, it would be ridiculous to assume that it would be done so fairly.

A Tribute To Jim Corbett

We've all heard stories. Stories of beasts and bullets, of war and danger. Such stories are often stretched beyond reality and after every retelling; one can swear that there were twice as many Germans, or that there were two leopards at no more than 50 feet away instead of one at 200 yards. But how many men can honestly boast that he had saved entire villages from ferocious man-eating beasts? How many men can claim that he had saved hundreds of lives by killing 19 tigers and 14 leopards?
Jim Corbett was born on July 25, 1875 as the eighth child of Christopher and Mary Jane Corbett. From a very young age, young Jim held an affinity towards the forest and all of its inhabitants. His frequent treks into the forest soon gave him the ability to identify most birds and beasts simply by their calls. Though he had the skills of a hunter, he began work as a fuel inspector at Manakpur and later a shipping contractor in Bihar.

Corbett was no more than an enthusiast in his early life; he focused solely on small game and fishing. But soon, as the death toll grew due to frequent attacks by man-eaters, he turned his focus to tigers and leopards. However, because of his deep admiration of such predators, he promised to only shoot tigers and leopards that turned on man or cattle. He killed his first man-eating tiger at the age of 32. The Champawat Tiger in Champawat was documented to have killed 436 men and women. Over 31 years starting in 1907, he killed 32 other man eaters that had in total, killed over 1500 men and women.

His books, all personal narratives of his spine chilling hunts, recount near impossible treks through dangerous forests, thrilling stories of killing tigers that were only a few feet away from him in pitch black, and other such tales. His other notable successes were the Panar Leopard, which killed over 400, the Chowgarh tigress, and the Thak man-eater.
Corbett was in every sense of the term, a hero. He risked his life countless times to preserve the lives of hundreds of others. He did not kill for pleasure (in fact in his first book, "The Man-Eaters of Kumaon", he tells of an incidence where he had accidentally shot the wrong tiger, and how he deeply regretted it). Instead, he killed tigers and leopards to protect humans.
Throughout his later life he fought to create a nature preserve in India that would protect all of the native inhabitants, bird and beast, from poachers and entrepreneurs. He moved to Kenya in the later years of life, and he died there from a heart attack at the age of 79. After his death the preserve was named after him. Even so many years after his death, he is still remembered fondly for his courage, honor, and respect for life.