The difference between being coerced and coercing

[pvn]

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...With a government in place there are (presumably, though not necessarily) public lands and roadways where you have a right to be.

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Not to mention that under statism, dead people aren't automatically permitted to assign all of their property, post-mortem, to their designated successors without limit of any kind (and in the process, create an absolute hegemony of the landed).

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The property is assigned pre-mortem.

Would you have a problem with Mr. X signing a contract in which he transfers all of his property to Mr. Y one week from today?

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Yes.

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OK, on what basis?

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Aristocracy has already been tried and found inferior (for the great majority of people - it's probably okay for some of the aristocrats) to mixed market democracy.

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Wow. Would this apply if he were attepting to transfer all his property to, say, a cancer research foundation? What if he gives 25% to cancer research, 25% to aids research, 25% to malaria research, and 25% to feeding the hungry. OK or not OK?

The fact that some number of people don't like something is not a basis for initiating force (appeal to majority). If the great majority of people want to kill Arabs, it's OK? Mob rule! Might makes right!

How much property should Mr. X be allowed to transfer? Who gets to set that threshold, and what happens to the rest of it?

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Who has any greater claim to the property, any right to overrule the benefactor's own decision as to the disposal of his rightful property?

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Anyone who will be harmed by his assignation has, at minimum, a right to self-defense. (And of course, the creation of a landed aristocracy qualifies as harm to anyone not a member. We could argue about whether or not it's harmful to the members as well, pointing at the Kennedy children, Paris Hilton, etc., but that's for another thread, probably in another forum.)

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Please explain this harm. If the harmed party has a right to the property being assigned, please explain where that right originates from. Otherwise, the disposal of property that Mr. X has no right to is extremely unlikely to damage Mr. X (but I'd love to hear any particular wacky edge case you can dream up). Issac asked you a variation on this question, if an individual does not have exclusive rights to his body, WHO DOES, and you dodged it, twice.

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I don't think I've ever dodged this. The answer is: whoever we say has the right. (An answer which I hope you find not terribly surprising: to the best of my knowledge (and yours, I strongly suspect, unless Jesus is talking to you personally), rights are an invention of mankind.)

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Wow. Rights are useless unless they are consistent. Your "whoever" position is obviously not a consistent one, and therefore cannot be descriptive of anything that could usefully be called a "right".

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Meanwhile, you accuse me of not providing sources when I did and you just didn't bother to read them.

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Not only did I read them, I *had read* two of them before you posted them. They do not support your claim, a fact of which you are no doubt aware.

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Sigh. I suppose you didn't notice that I already went back and pulled sections from them. They all indicate that there is more involved than, as you said, simply removing yourself from the US, and more than, as you amended your claim, just removing yourself AND renouncing.

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How many Carnegies, Rockefellers, Morgans are at the top of the Forbes 400?

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What possible relevance can this have? Are you postulating that an aristocracy can comprise no more than 400 people?

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These people were all at or very near the top. Their heirs are no longer there. Do you think the estate tax is the reason they are not?

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There are many, many factors that are more important in explaining the breakup of large concentrations of wealth than the estate tax.

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Which, even if it were true - ah yes, let me add: "Source please!" - in no way indicates the estate tax is not a factor... which is not surprising, since it in fact does prohibit the unlimited accumulation of wealth (and therefore, concentration of power) by nepotism.

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Well, the fact that heirs have to eat also reduces their ability to rapidly accumulate wealth. That doesn't mean it's a significant factor.

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Off topic: do you prefer a tax on estates or on heirs?

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What do you see as the difference?

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If you're worried about breaking up large estates, there's a big one. DUCY?

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No. Please explain.

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A benefactor could give his entire estate to one person, or he could divy it up between two people, or among 100 people. In the case where he divides it among 100 people, a tax on the entire estate can not be seriously put forward as a measure to discourage an "absolute hegemony".