Unto him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away – even that which he hath
The fact that the ownership of more than average capital facilitates the acquisition of even more relative to (and perhaps from) those who have less was known long before Thomas Piketty analysed the actual numbers for the last couple of centuries and related the concentration phenomenon to an inequality favouring the rate of return on capital over the rate of growth of the economy.
Of course no individual, or culture, lives forever. So no matter how much capital gets concentrated it eventually gets re-distributed. But the practice of familial inheritance prolongs the accumulation process and leads to even more extreme inequality – until there is either a revolution, external invasion, natural disaster, or economic collapse.
This leads to three questions:
Is the concentration of all power and capital into the hands of a small class of lucky families to be deplored?
If so is the lesser concentration that would happen over a single lifetime also undesirable?
And in either of the above cases is there any effective and acceptable mechanism for limiting the amount of concentration?