Prometheus 6

This Hard-Earned Money Comes Stuffed in Their Genes
By Dusty Horwitt
Sunday, April 18, 2004; Page B03

In every age and every nation, the rich and powerful employ new myths to preserve their privileged status. In the 17th and 18th centuries, European monarchs justified their rule through "the divine right of kings," perhaps most famously articulated by Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, a tutor to Louis XIV's son. "God establishes Kings as his ministers, and reigns through them over the people," Bossuet wrote in a document published posthumously in 1709.

As the election season heats up, you can count on hearing more references to the modern American equivalent of "the divine right of kings": the sacred notion of "hard-earned money." Late last month, President Bush praised his tax cuts by saying that as a result, "We've left more money in the hands that earned it." And a few weeks earlier, his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, praised tax cuts in his state that, he said, meant Floridians were "keeping more of their hard-earned money."

Many wealthy Americans and their political allies have fueled the popular myth that we earn all of our money through individual effort. After all, if our money is fully "hard-earned," the argument goes, it's unfair for the government to take it away -- and especially unfair to provide it to the less affluent among us who didn't "earn" their way as we did.

But like the divine right of kings, there is more myth than truth in the phrase "hard-earned" money.

Exhibit A is Forbes magazine's list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, which tells the story of a massive redistribution of wealth based more on birth than on hard work.

…followed by two pages of really rewarding nepotism.

Among the 100 wealthiest Americans on this year's list, Forbes reports that 46, or almost half, owe at least a chunk of their fortunes to inheritance. They include real estate mogul Donald Trump (net worth $2.5 billion), media baron Rupert Murdoch (net worth $7.2 billion) and five heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune Alice, Helen, Jim, John and Robson Walton who are worth $20.5 billion each.

While some people who inherit money work as hard and competently as some who haven't inherited piles of cash, inherited money is not the product of the heir's hard work. Neither is the wealth created by inherited investments.

And inherited money is only one form of unearned wealth. Other types include the businesses, jobs and even access to universities that millions of Americans inherit, at least in part.