From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!trc Newsgroups: net.politics Title: BILLIONS and BILLIONS Article-I.D.: houti.230 Posted: Thu Mar 10 18:46:24 1983 Received: Fri Mar 11 06:29:20 1983 "is it *fair* that someone should get that much wealth and the resulting political power by picking the right father?" It depends what the definition of "any realistic sense of *earn*" is. Taken literally, since they *did* in fact earn it, there is no problem. I suspect that what is really meant is "in any way that most people earn money". And of course, most people dont make their money in the same way as the Rockefellers. No one is born rich - their parents are rich, and choose to give their wealth to their children. Someone along the line had to earn that money. In what sense is any of this unfair? One would have to assume that the parents did not have a right to choose what became of their fortune, in order to consider it unfair. However, it would be grossly unfair if their wealth gave them undue political power. However, the possibility of this happening is determined by the type of government, not by their being wealthy. In a proper republic, wealth should not result in undue power. Unfortunately, I dont know of any government today in which this is the case. Whether they choose wisely in leaving their entire fortune, intact with their children, is another matter. Personally, I would rather spend most of it while alive, and instead leave behind children that know how to make money (IE be productive.) But again, that is a personal choice. houti!trc Tom Craver