John Davison Rockefeller I
John Davison Rockefeller II
John Davison Rockefeller III
John Davison “Jay” Rockefeller IV
so the first son succession in the rockefeller family would go this way. jay is a democratic senator worth under 100 million.
this is the current richest rockefeller, worth over 2 billion, the 5th son of ll
head in hands
Clayton -
lol poor Clayton
OK, so there is confusion about the order of inheritance. The British crown (regnal title) inherits in strict male primogeniture. However, other systems of patriarchal inheritance use a system of cascading “eldest male heir”. If a man has three sons, his eldest inherits first, when the eldest dies, his next eldest son inherits, and so on. The rules get more complicated after the last of his sons dies… it might pass to the eldest son of the most recent heir or it might go back to the eldest male descendant of the original patriarch. It all depends on the house law. The unifying principle here is that the wealth remains concentrated and that it is an individual male heir who is solely charged with directing it (patriarchy). The point of choosing the eldest is that he is presumably the most experienced and mature and, thus, most likely to take seriously his task of maintaining the household not only in this generation but for those to come.
Anyway… *sigh
Clayton -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOTOrW8Z0o this person discribes a different practice from the one you are discribing. this guy discribes it going to the first son of the first son even if there is a second son of the father of the first son.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_family says professional money managers and trust commities are used rather than a single person.
Much of the wealth has been locked up in the notable family trust of 1934 (which holds the bulk of the fortune and matures on the death of the fourth generation), and the trust of 1952, both administered by the Chase Manhattan Bank. These trusts have consisted of shares in the successor companies to Standard Oil and other diversified investments, as well as the family’s considerable real estate holdings. They are administered by a powerful trust committee that oversees the fortune. It has consisted over time of high-profile individuals, who have included Paul Volcker, William G. Bowen (former president of Princeton University) and John C. Whitehead (retired co-chairman of Goldman Sachs).[citation needed]
Management of this fortune today also rests with professional money managers who oversee the principal holding company, Rockefeller Financial Services, which controls all the family’s investments, now that Rockefeller Center is no longer owned by the family. The present chairman is David Rockefeller, Jr.
It gets really weird when entailed property is in the hands of a person who dies without issue as established by the entail…then it goes back up the family tree to the next available qualifying member, see Pride and Prejudice for an example. Such things were established by an initial grant with male or female issue specified, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOTOrW8Z0o this video discribes a different system of primogeniture.
Before the advent of modern medicine, producing issue was a serious matter with no guarantees. A wife was costly and the purpose of acquiring a wife was to produce issue. If a man died without producing issue with his wife, then it made sense for one of his brothers to produce issue with her. Lest you recoil in horror at the brutality of such a system, she would have known from the outset that this was the arrangement. Who knows, maybe the first guy turned out to be a total a-hole and she offed him just in order to be handed off to one of his brothers.
But I’m not espousing ancient Judaic culture (to whatever extent we even actually know what it was). Here is an article discussion various orders of succession (this is a particularly fascinating form!). It’s difficult to say “this one is the best” and I don’t think you need to - the basic principle of patriarchy and wealth consolidation runs through all the dominant systems of succession.
I think an argument can be made that male primogeniture is the most dominant system. Time will tell. The reason for caring is not to “shape society” or to pass laws “making” people use this or that form of succession but, rather, it is a matter of the science of satisfaction - how should a family best order its household so as to best assure its present and long-term happiness? I think the answer lies in some form or other of patriarchal, non-proportional inheritance in combination with the patriarch having responsibility for the moral leadership and “social security” of the family (which is why I think that the systems that nominate the “eldest male kin” probably make the most sense).
Clayton -
I think such systems can create untenable problems down the line for an inheritor. It’s all very well to inherit property if you’re inheriting the wealth needed to support it, and if you have some way to provide for your other offspring. Too often neither is the case.
one ishue with patriarchy is that i think it rejects the participation of women in the free market. men will win in the market if women are not even giving a change to participate in it or given such disadvantage. i see male dominance in a free market as something that would be social policy rather than natural. there are some jobs males are better at and some females are better at, but i’m not sure taking care of wealth is a job males have a natural advantage in. maybe it would come out as dominate, but i think a free market would give females more of a chance to optain the role of head of household with the females being fully capable of growing the wealth of a family.
if a male patriach can aquire wealth cheaper than a female, sure it might be rational to have the patriarch do the business, but i think that is a result of culture and nurture rather than nature. it’s a cultureal rejection of females in business, and another society or group that makes it a even trade or gives the female a better deal would have different results. i don’t think the subjective valuation of females as lower than males is a neccessity or that it has a competitive advantage over a system based more on merit.
science of satishfaction wise, a free market with different types of families would be a good test.
But the same is true for, say, running a business. In fact, I would argue that the concept of a heritable patriarchal title is little else than viewing a family as a “business” in its own right. I think that this is the most fundamental business of all and I think this explains why all the most powerful and wealthy people in the world utilize some form or other of this system. The human being is the most valuable capital asset of all and managing the production of this asset (family) is the most complex and valuable task of all. In my approach to Power Elite analysis, the permanent Establishment is nothing else other than the blood and marriage network of those families who are wealthy and powerful and who understand that family is what it’s all about.
Clayton -
The difference for an inheritor of this kind of contract is they have no legal means of changing the terms they were born into. It’s not at all like running a business.
@cab21: I don’t know what you’re responding to but it isn’t anything I’ve said.
Note that I’m not talking about “society” or whether men or women should be “dominant” or not in “society” or “business”. I’m talking about households and families, which are voluntary and which have plenary power to discharge their own affairs as they see fit, irrespective of whether you or I like the aesthetics of the “outcome”.
If we rewind back to, say, 10kya, men wooed women in one of two basic ways - genetic excellence (beauty, alpha-maleness, etc.) or by provisions (“bringing home the bacon”). The fundamental temptation of the female is to “cheat” the system and try to get the best of both worlds - the genes of a genetically excellent male (who probably won’t stick around because there are always new sexual conquests to be had for such men) and the provisions of a dutiful provider. Hence, cuckoldry. This problem is so fundamental, so central to human society and reproduction that our very anatomy and biology has been adapted to cope with it*.
This struggle still goes on today. Genetically speaking, tax parasites of any form are nothing other than cuckolders. The children of net tax beneficiaries are raised at the expense of the children of net tax contributors. So, this struggle is very much alive today.
The forces of genetic privilege are inherently communal. In fact, communal family is the cause of alpha-male mating - in order to select the best genes, only one male can be permitted to mate with all the females and this male must be selected by eliminative competition. The power of moder social structures is that they have permitted the privatization of the costs of child-rearing onto the particular father of those children. But along with this privatization has come a “tightening” of the scope for cuckoldry and genetic parasitism. The State is, in my view, the vestiges of this ancient, alpha-male, communal reproductive system but it continues its existence by cleverer means… rather than sneaking into a woman’s tent while her husband is out hunting, the cuckolder demands “taxes” and buys more wives and raises more children with these (or passes the wealth onto his genetic relatives, clan members, or other favorites who do the same). The net effect is the same either way.
The system of succession is a means of rationalizing the inter-generational production of offspring so that a family line may control to some degree its own destiny. The first male to cultivate a patriarchal line is seeking to maximize the reproductive potential (not just children, also grand-children, etc) of his wealth by ordering his affairs in such a way as to preserve the family wealth over many generations and keep it from being squandered on the hedonistic pursuits that it would inevitably be put to if the entire wealth were divided among the extant family.
Those who are in power and employ the social technology of ordered inheritance want to suppress its use by others because this is part and parcel of the logic of the genetic parasite - the greatest enemy of this genetic parasitism is rational, inter-generational family structure because it tends to make the system of reproduction “airtight” - only genetic relatives of family are beneficiaries of the family’s wealth. Mooches, taxmen, cuckolders and parasites of any type need not apply.
By dividing the inheritance proportionally, this process is kept very weak if it even exists at all and renders the general populace largely defenseless against the will of the organized interests of the permanent Establishment who will continue to exploit the masses. Perhaps the most tragic manifestation of this is the “artificial selection” (i.e. eugenics) that is being practiced by the Elites to select and promote the most docile and suppress the most rambunctious. The long-run social effects of this process are incalculable but are likely to be tragic in my view.
Clayton -
*Read about the origins of concealed fertility in human females
I’m a third-generation Italian American. My grandmother told me some family history long ago. Somewhere along the way, back in the seventeenth century I think, the elder brother inherited the property in the Marche and my ancestor had to go away to Sicily to establish himself. I don’t think the elder brother had either the means or the inclination to find employment for him, and regardless, unless something drastic happened my ancestor would never have been able to pass on any of the benefit to his own children. A few generations later, my family were painting carts in Catania and the properties in the Marche were going to seed, having been quite hedonistically squandered as far as I’ve been able to tell. There’s almost nothing left today, just relics. I think the remaining structures/grounds reverted to the state or something. Nobody left with the money to support them.
If the father of those two children had had the opportunity to choose how his property and fortune were divided, I think he might have made different decisions. The fortune may still not have survived-but at least he wouldn’t have had his hands tied.
my response was to why patriarchy would be dominate in a free market society.
so how ought ayn rand( or any women with property earned or homesteaded) to have given her wealth?
under this patriarchy system, ought she to marry, give her wealth to a husband, and accept a allowence?
i dont think women need taxes or patriarchy to raise a family if allowed a free market.
Yeah, I think the system needs to be based on voluntary choice, of course. But I think a system that tends to favor the older (hopefully, wiser) men in the family is more likely to be durable over the long-run.
Clayton -
Indeed. Rulership is less about physical control than about controlling how people interpret things. The effective ruler provides people with the values and norms in terms of which they interpret reality in a manner favorable to him. He’s not a thief, he’s collecting tithes for Anu, as his chief agent on Earth, etc.The facts are nothing in themselves, interpretation is everything.
I feel the same way. Of course, anarcho-capitalists will say (rightly) that the State should not be that vessel. But what then? They will respond (again, rightly) that which institutions acquire positions of social-cultural-religious authority will be determined unpredictably by free association. However, that’s not very satisfying. I wish libertarians gave more thought to developing such institutions. The market is an emergent phenomenon, the firm is not. It is designed by human intellect. To say “the market will sort it out” with respect to the institutions of social-cultural-religious authority means only that someone other than you will develop them; it is to abdicate any responsibility for creating them. Why don’t we do it ourselves and invent institutions which compliment and strengthen a libertarian social order? There’s no guarantee that any institutions we design will succeed in a free society, but we ought to make an attempt. I’d like to see something like a libertarian sociology, trying to understand what kinds of civil institutions, organizations, associations, et al are possible in and conducive to maintaining a free society. I’d like libertarians to be able to say what civil society should look like (in order to keep society free), not that we would impose any particular order by force, but to have an image in mind, something to persuade people of, something to try to construct through voluntary means./ramble
Preserving the familial wealth through the generations is obviously essential for the ruling class, and so concentrated inheritance is essential. I can see your case for extending this “social technology” to all families. I’m not sure about the value of primogeniture though. Yes, it has the advantage of being an objective, fixed rule and thereby reducing the likelihood of conflict over the inheritance (barring murder of the first-born by rivals). But, on the other hand, it allows no mechanism for skipping over the incompetent first-borns. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts on this subject, very interesting. 