[mookiemookie]

The estate tax was created way back when to prevent the rise of a landed gentry. The founding fathers had just left a country where the system was set up "only to raise the wealth and importance of particular families and individuals, giving them an unequal and undue influence in a republic" according to North Carolina's 1784 law that abolished entailed estates. A similar law in Virginia in 1776 said that "the perpetuation of property in certain families, by means of gifts made to them in fee taille, is contrary to good policy." The idea of an estate tax was advocated by folks like Thomas Paine, Adam Smith (the father of capitalism, lest you call me a damn dirty socialist) and Thomas Jefferson. It revolves around the idea that your place in society should be earned by your own works and contributions to it, rather than by your last name.

I think it makes sense.