Yes, Kurt, 'the owner' has property rights and can depense it as he or she sees fit, within the law, of course. One can't pass out grenades and machine guns to the rebel youth of one's choice, at least in most circumstances.

But don't things change when 'the owner' ceases to exist as a person, at least in this world? That's the point I'm raising. Do property rights exist in perpetuity, long after the person has gone? If property rights have an eternal quality, then does someone have a case against those who seized the land worked by the natives who were here before them? Be careful with your answer here, because corportions are claiming these eternal 'personal rights', while the heirs of their past victims, are claiming their eternal right to sue for recovery, as in the reparations movement. You might not want to go there...

Moreover, all wealth is created in the context of social capital, to one degree or another, as well as individual capital and indiviual effort, along with the gifts of nature itself. That's why taxes, except, say, in the view of a few cranks, are not simply theft.

Why not, then, see the reasonableness of returning a portion, even a substantial one, of a no-longer-existing 'persons' propety to replenish the social capital, as in schools and knowlege, from which it sprang, in part at least, in the first place.

I know, as a youngster, whose family books and novels I could count on my fingers, I made great use of the 'BF Jones Memorial Library' in my milltown, main base of 'Jones & Laughlin Steel.' Old BF saw himself as having to live up to Carnegie in giving some of his megabucks away to libraries. But even he benefitted indirectly, by raising the literacy of the working class and their kids, including me, in the otherwise harshness of a milltown before there were unions to make in a little safer. A few of my folks perished there, however, before those union reforms were won. One reason, perhaps, why I appreciate them more than you might.

One can understand the desire of the heirs to get something for nothing, or even something for contributing to the general well-being of the deceased in his or lifetime, which indirectly may have contributed to the family fortune in some small way.

That's why I say give each kid up to a million bucks, to cover that point, even if it gives them a leg up on non-heirs in the 'free' market of life. The kids may squawk, but don't we want them to learn self-reliance as good libertarians?

You might argue that the person should get to choose where his or her wealth goes. Very well, do it while they're still alive, like Buffet and Gates. There one is only subject to a bit of social pressure to give to worthy causes, rather than one's favorite lazy offspring, hooker or pet, but, then, as your side is often fond of saying, life has it's little unfairnesses, doesn't it?