From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THE BUSH AGENDA
Warren Buffett's America
Shades of Mao in his defense of the death tax.
George W. Bush, a man who understands the meaning of good fortune, has repeatedly reiterated his desire to repeal the estate tax. His most vocal opponents on the subject, ironically, are a handful of America's superrich, who objected recently by public letter to the abolition of that same tax.
The letter, which will doubtless be followed by a new flurry of "tax me" epistles in response to the latest call from the president, was signed by such unlikely pamphleteers as George Soros, Paul Newman, Bill Gates Sr. and a smattering of Rockefellers. Their manifesto was supported from the wings by Warren Buffett, who withheld his signature because he felt it didn't go far enough.
What are we to make of this tortured gesture, this faintly absurd call, in effect, for a "million billionaire march" on Washington? Why wouldn't these people leave as much money to their children as they could? After all, if I could pass on the kind of inheritance that would allow my kids to spend a lifetime visiting rain forests, collecting Rembrandts or redeciphering the Rosetta Stone, I most certainly would.
Here's why I would--and I'm not ashamed to be philosophical about it. An inheritance is good for one's children, and for society. It allows parents to remove a significant burden from their children's lives, enabling them to transcend the humdrum. A future in which succeeding generations are freed from the need to spawn wealth anew can allow children--and grandchildren--to lead lives on a higher plane. Why can't I give my children a life of contemplation, or of connoisseurial study and acquisition, or of patronage and cultural stewardship?
The immediate effect of the inheritance tax, when first imposed in this country, was the eradication of the great American country-house culture. In Britain, it led to the pulling down of storied castles and historic mansions for lack of upkeep. Libraries and art collections, codes of chivalry and good manners alike, husbanded over centuries, disappeared virtually overnight, taking with them a refined and cultivated way of life.
The poet Yeats celebrated such centers of privilege for their ceremonial courtesy. "How but in custom and in ceremony/Are beauty and innocence born?" he asked. Noble families can be custodians of a national heritage, a kind of culture bank built over many generations. Edmund Burke noted the importance of patrimony in the 18th century: "The idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission without excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free, but it secures what it acquires." Inheritance can, in other words, offer a bulwark against social dissolution and chaos. It's not a new idea, but it's not one that Mr. Buffet seems keen to emphasize.
Mr. Buffet has said: "We have come closer to a true meritocracy than anywhere in the world. . . . People with talents can be put to the best use." This, in itself, is unimpeachable. But his wider prescriptions in defense of that meritocracy are flawed. He worries that inherited wealth might mar our ability to "command the resources of the nation" most effectively.
What does that mean? Mr. Buffett's America, and the America of those superrich who have spoken out for the estate tax, is a Sisyphean place, a kind of perpetual competition machine. Their meritocracy would send each generation back to the starting blocks. Indeed, they consider a start at "square one" to be a sine qua non of a meritocratic system. But this is a fundamental misreading of capitalism. It is a misreading, also, of meritocracy, for true meritocrats would focus only on the removal of unjust barriers to material success, not on a whittling down of success already attained. In fact this is egalitarianism--the opposite of meritocracy.
This misreading of capitalism is alarming. People work hard so they, and their children, can enjoy the fruits of their labor. Remember the "pursuit of happiness" clause in the Declaration of Independence? In the America of Mr. Buffett and the others, where competition is a virtuous end in itself, the 12-step culture and the workaholic ethic have subtly fused: Process becomes the purpose, and the purpose is to sustain the process, namely cathartic competition. It's a vicious circle in which the stragglers who stop to smell the roses are dismissed as weak or, worse, as self-indulgent sons of privilege. This is not a far cry from the Maoist notion of "perpetual revolution," where every generation must embrace the struggle anew.
The overall tenor of Mr. Buffett's views, and those of the petitioners, also suggests a too-puritanical ethos. "Without the estate tax," he has said, "you in effect have an aristocracy of wealth." I cannot resist a bit of ad hominem fun here. The name "Buffett" has an appropriately Dickensian ring--suggesting a vastly wealthy character who, when another lucrative day is done, lies down to nightmares about his riches, and who wakes up in the morn bathed in a mortified sweat. Mr. Buffett and his ilk appear to suffer from a surprisingly virulent case of aristophobia, one that seems to color their moral outlook strongly. They are, in effect, peddling a form of class warfare.
Many Americans may unthinkingly endorse this bias. Inherited aristocracies go in tandem with impoverished classes, don't they? Not necessarily: not, for instance, in such affluent societies as France and Spain and Britain.
But the petitioners are not proposing to eradicate inequality, merely the inherited kind. Anybody familiar with the truth rather than the movie knows that on the Titanic, the flower of American aristocracy died sacrificing themselves for others. Such was the standard of conduct imbued by the kind of privilege the petitioners disdain. How, one wonders, would the flower of their imagined meritocracy behave in like circumstances?
In fact, multigenerational wealth may be the only buttress against a Darwinian horde of relentless new-money power-seekers and professional climbers. The Renaissance was built on a society of dynastic privilege. Classical music grew out of such a system. The Buddha was an aristocrat. And so, for that matter, was George Washington.
Mr. Kaylan is a senior editor at Forbes.com and a columnist for the New York Press.
