Soaring inequalities, aging... "We need to repoliticize inheritance," argues philosopher Mélanie Plouviez

Mélanie Plouviez, a lecturer in social and political philosophy at the Université Côte d'Azur, proposes to reopen debates on questions of inheritance by exploring the corpus of 19th-century texts that questioned the foundations of individual property. Shouldn't this only concern the time of existence? Wouldn't times of transition and transmission allow inheritances to be oriented with a concern for the common good, within the framework of deliberative assemblies? The philosopher questions the fact that improved artificial capital is transmitted individually while degraded natural capital is transmitted collectively.

What makes you say that we have returned to a "society of heirs"?

Since the 1970s, the weight of inheritance has continued to grow. While the share of inherited wealth in France represented 35% of total wealth in 1970, it represented 60% in 2010. What does this mean? That private capital is increasingly composed of wealth from the past and passed down within the family. Or that it is less and less the result of its holders' own work. In short, it is better to inherit than to work! But a society of inheritance is not a society in which everyone is an heir.

On the contrary, a small number inherit a lot while the majority receives very little. As Thomas Piketty has shown , in 2010 the richest 10% held 62% of total wealth, the richest 1% 25%, while the poorest 50% owned less than 5%. This inequality in inheritance must be measured: in France, the median inheritance is 70,000 euros. In other words, 50% of individuals inherit less than 70,000 euros of wealth throughout their lives and, among these, a large fraction inherit no wealth at all.

How can we explain that we talk so little about heritage today, unlike in the 19th century, which saw it as a possibility for systemic transformation?

In the 19th century, the issue of inheritance was indeed on everyone's lips. The number of texts devoted to it is simply dizzying. What is surprising is that we talk so little about inheritance today, even though it is regaining a weight comparable to that which it held in the 19th century. Why such silence? Because the family transmission of heritage is taken for granted for us. It presents itself to us as a natural and necessary given.

But it wasn't always like this. In the 19th century, on the contrary, it was questioned, challenged, and criticized. This is what I tried to do in my book: to question our contemporary assumptions about inheritance by comparing them with the ways in which inheritance was thought of in the 19th century.

According to Alexis de Tocqueville, we have moved from an aristocratic model to a democratic model in inheritance law. What role did the Revolution play in this regard?

For Tocqueville, there are two opposing family models. The aristocratic family is unequal, structured by paternal power and the privileges of the eldest son. The democratic family, on the other hand, is egalitarian, united around parental love and the community of equals formed by brothers and sisters. The first interesting point: Tocqueville bases this difference on inheritance law. The aristocratic family is based on the law of male primogeniture, which concentrates the bulk of the parental estate in the hands of the eldest male.

The democratic family, on the contrary, is based on the principle of equal sharing: as much for the younger as for the eldest, as much for the sisters as for the brothers. Now, it was the French Revolution that imposed this equality of inheritance, with the so-called Nivôse law of January 6, 1794. But – and this is the second interesting point – in the eyes of Tocqueville, as of the revolutionary legislators, inheritance law conditions not only the family, but also the political regime.

For them, there is an essential link between male primogeniture and monarchy, as well as between equal sharing and democracy. This is what Tocqueville's beautiful expression encapsulates: "democratic family." Here emerges a thesis that was omnipresent in the 19th century and now completely forgotten: inheritance law is political from the outset.

You highlight the fact that, on average, in France today, it is the oldest people who transmit to people who are already relatively old.

This is what I call the "seniorization" of inheritance, a phenomenon whose full extent we have not yet fully grasped. In 1820, people inherited on average at age 25. Today, people inherit outright on average at age 60. This demographic change poses formidable problems. The first is the uses of inheritance. We do not do the same thing with capital depending on whether we receive it at age 25 or 60.

André Masson, an economist specializing in aging, speaks in this regard of wealth tension. Inherited sums are "sleeping" in short-term investments, at a time when long-term investment needs are massive, particularly to address the ecological crisis. And we're not talking about small sums.

Of the 14 trillion euros of French private capital, 8,500 billion are held by those over 60. The second problem is intergenerational injustice. Younger generations experience less easy entry into the job market than their elders. They experience more fragmented careers. And they also see the time when they will inherit growing distant. Their wealth development is delayed by that of previous generations.

But, above all, there's a kind of dissonance between this demographic reality and our representations of inheritance. We still think of the heir as a young adult and we justify inheritance as a way to offer our children a better starting point. But today, the heir is a retiree. Inheritance is no longer a starting point, but a destination!

There is an urgent need to combat current inheritance tax avoidance strategies...

Indeed. The implementation of progressive inheritance taxation is the result of a theoretical and political struggle that lasted more than a century. The French Revolution introduced an inheritance tax in 1790, but it wasn't until 1901 that this tax became progressive. This progressive tax, whose rate increases with the amount of inherited wealth, can significantly contribute to reducing wealth inequality. This is what happened in the 20th century, when inheritance tax helped reduce the burden of inheritance.

But, as the Economic Analysis Council's 2021 report "Rethinking Inheritance" showed, the progressivity of this tax is "undermined" by a whole series of exemptions and waivers: on the transfer of life insurance contracts, family businesses, forest assets, historic monuments, works of art, etc.

However, these exemptions concern types of assets held by the wealthiest segments of the population. They thus allow for a legal distortion between the posted rates and the effective rates. This is not tax evasion, but rather tax avoidance organized by law. During the French Revolution, the legislators responsible for implementing a republican tax constantly hammered home the point: no privilege, no exemption, no tax exemption must be tolerated, otherwise feudal taxation would be reestablished. But 19th-century authors teach us that tax is not the only way to transform inheritance.

You then use the term "transmission socialism." What is it?

I have identified a set of theories that propose to achieve the socialization of property by means of the socialization of inheritance. This is what I have called "socialism of transmission" and which I have differentiated from "socialism of possession." This distinction finds an incarnation in Bakunin's opposition to Marx at the Basel Congress in 1869 during the First International. For Marx, the question of inheritance is secondary, consecutive: it is appropriate to work directly towards the collectivization of the means of production; the abolition of inheritance will follow.

Bakunin defends the exact opposite position. According to him, the abolition of inheritance is the prerequisite for the socialization of property. Others advocate this path: for example, before him, Fichte, the Saint-Simonians, and after him, Durkheim. These authors perceive the transition from life to death as the right moment to socialize property. And, unlike expropriation, this socialization occurs gently, gradually. All one has to do is wait for the suspension of property rights that death inevitably brings.

What exactly are the contributions of the founder of scientific sociology, Émile Durkheim?

Although he was portrayed as a conservative in the 1960s, Durkheim made no secret of his socialism, as he walked through the courtyard of the Sorbonne with L'Humanité in hand. His proposal was that inheritance should cease to be passed down through the family and be transferred to professional groups. At the end of the 19th century, workers' organizations, after being banned for a long time, were being reconstituted in the form of trade unions.

Durkheim proposes nothing less than financing unions through inheritance. In other words, the transfer of inheritance to professional groups should, in his view, allow for forms of economic democracy. It is also intended to finance new social protections that did not exist at the time: the right to health, retirement, etc. Durkheim thus opens up a long-forgotten avenue for financing the welfare state: let the dead pay their dues! At a time when the welfare state is weakened by its financing difficulties, when new social protections require financing, it is undoubtedly worthwhile to reopen this avenue.

Is it a question of abolishing family inheritance in favor of democratic deliberation on transmissions?

Yes, we must repoliticize inheritance. The obvious family transmission of wealth deprives us of democratic deliberation on what we collectively want to do with the money of the dead. It is to this democratic requirement that 19th-century authors invite us.

“Injustice as a Legacy,” by Mélanie Plouviez, La Découverte, 368 pages, 23 euros.