politics

Wealth, these studies find, often stays within rich families across multiple generations.

I was told again and again in my school by my history teacher that generational wealth doesn’t work, and that spoiled kids become poor in a generation or two.

This was related to justifying our economic system.

So… it was always just a lie?

Many people of color are still slaves in US prisons.

I wonder how many of these descendents of slaveholders are still profiting of US slavery

Almost every European alive is a descendant of Charlemagne.

That's just how generational expansion works when you have 16 great-grandparents.

It's honestly weirder that there's a relatively few number of proven descendants, I suppose many family fortunes were lost as the fallout of the war, making most of the remaining descendants of factory owners and slumlords instead.

Using genealogist-verified historical data and financial data from annual congressional disclosures, we examined members of the 117th Congress, which was in session from January 2021 to January 2023.

Of its 535 members, 100 were descendants of slaveholders, including Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Legislators whose ancestors were large slaveholders – defined in our study as owning 16 or more slaves– have a current median net worth five times larger than their peers whose ancestors were not slaveholders: $5.6 million vs. $1.1 million. These results remained largely the same after accounting for age, race and education.

Wealth, these studies find, often stays within rich families across multiple generations. Mechanisms for holding onto wealth include low estate taxes and access to elite social networks and schools. Easy entry into powerful jobs and political influence also play a part.

But members of Congress do not just inherit wealth and advantages.

They shape the lives of all Americans. They decide how to allocate federal funds, set tax rates and create regulations.

This power is significant. And for those whose families benefited from slavery, it can perpetuate economic policies that maintain wealth inequality.

Beyond inherited wealth, the legacy of slavery endures in policies enacted by those in power – by legislators who may be less likely to prioritize reforms that challenge the status quo.

I'm curious the ratio of those who have had former family members that have been politicians to those that are actually political outsiders. This article points out that the status quo is less of what society as a whole wants, but rather more what a select group of families has felt has worked for them to stay in that upper echelon.

If the South has been forced to give everything up after the war, I don't know if it would have been any better as far as if rich Northerners actually would have just bled off the best spoils of war and still left the South impoverished, but leaving the aristocracy get away with playing things like it never happened does not seem to have been the best choice either.

It would be interesting to see where things would be if all that wealth and land was divided up between all southerners of all races evenly, and those who lead the Confederacy had been punished. I feel many of today's problems stem from the North turning the other cheek to the defeated South.