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.