The “inter-generational wealth” argument.

submitted by justjoggin from self.debatealtright

The opposition blames black failures on being denied the right to generate and pass on “inter-generational wealth.”

What’s your direct argument against that, other than pointing out that the failure is on a global scale and that blacks lived in dung huts long before white people came along.

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[–]justjoggin[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I’ve done no research on this, but isn’t the average white person in debt and basically living check to check and therefore not passing along much in inheritance?

I’m going to wildly guess that the average black welfare recipient receives more in welfare in a life time (or sooner) than the average white person receives in an inheritance. Does anybody have numbers on this subject?

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]Fitter_HappierWhite Nationalist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I'll say it, $7000 is chump change for an inheritance. Any reasonably responsible family should be able to will their house to their kids.

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    There was another recent post on this topic which may be of interest. There were some insightful comments in there.

    [–]AFutureConcern 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    So the argument goes something like:

    If blacks hadn't been discriminated against in the past, they would have passed on more wealth to their grandchildren. This wealth would have allowed blacks to be more successful than they are.

    In this weak form (some black failures are due to this) I think the argument is probably true. But actually quantifying this difference is probably going to yield a very small effect size.

    As well, of course, a lot of discrimination has in my view plenty of rational justification, where egalitarianism produces irrational, biased decisions. Drawing red lines around the purported "sh*thole areas" of a city probably would include a lot of black areas, and investors would be wise not to invest there. Claiming that these areas are just as nice as the white ones is an egalitarian lie which biases decisions against whites (whose areas are held to a higher standard than blacks').

    If we add

    And this is why the Alt-Right are wrong to blame black failures on black people

    This clearly does not follow from the previous argument. Firstly, discrimination against blacks is caused mostly by the behavior of blacks to start with. Secondly, the effect size of past and present discrimination is quite low compared to the effect intelligence has on outcomes. Lastly, we see rampant anti-white discrimination in society (egalitarian bias), which has the opposite effect on outcomes. It's quite possible if you removed all discrimination, including discrimination against white people, you'd see more black failure, not less.

    [–]FoxySDTWhite Nationalist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Sean Last made an article on this. The inter-generation wealth is not sufficient explanation for black failure.

    This may seem surprising, but it is consistent with other data on the inter-generational effects of wealth in 19th century America and in the South. For instance, Bleakley and Ferrie (2013) found that the decedents of those who won Georgia’s land-lottery in the 1830s fared no better for it in terms of their income, wealth, and literacy rates. Analyzing the opposite sort of event, Ager et al. (2016) looked at data on those whose wealth was destroyed during the civil war due to slave emancipation and war related property destruction. Based on this analysis, they estimate that a person’s wealth being decimated by 10% predicted a 0.4% decrease in their children’s income. By the next generation, this effect probably wouldn’t significantly differ from zero. It certainly would not differ from zero for those born 100 years later.

    https://ideasanddata.wordpress.com/2019/06/11/slavery-and-modern-black-poverty/

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    It's a cope. The fact is most blacks simply can't accumulate enough wealth to pass down in the first place. Accumulating wealth requires intelligence, forward planning/future time orientation and the ability to delay gratification.

    Even when they get the opportunity to build wealth, they piss it up against the wall. 80% of NFL and NBA players (most of whom are black) are broke within 5 years of retiring from their sport. They earn enough to be set for life if they save and invest it wisely. I'm sure that they're given advice about this and warned that their careers won't last long, but that isn't as appealing as taking out a huge mortgage on a mansion, buying 10 sports cars and expensive clothes and partying all the time.

    It's why reparations would be a failure. Give every black US citizen a huge check, most will squander it quickly on dumb shit and end up back in the position they were before.

    Most whites don't have any kind of inter-generational wealth unless their parents are well-off or bought a house somewhere before it exploded in value like London, NYC, or wherever. They tend to make their own wealth.

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Most people do not get passed down that much, because the average person is just that - average. Sure, the billionaires kids get tons of money, but that's not most people.

    Even if you do get passed down that much, you have to know how to manage it and use it wisely.

    There is nothing stopping blacks from passing down houses, wealth, items and other things just like other groups do. It's just blacks don't save their paychecks, they wear their paychecks.

    [–]Lostcarkeys 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    You can't make the intergenerational wealth argument without acknowledging the internment and impoverishment of Japanese Americans during WW2 and noting that despite leaving the camps with nothing but the shirts on their backs and facing a country that was extremely racist towards them, the Japs persevered and prospered. Through their choices they proved they were good. We accepted them again and they are and continue to be model minorities.