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Engels: Family Maintains
Capitalism By
Guaranteeing Inheritance
- Family helps maintain social status by guaranteeing the generational
inheritance of wealth and private property.
- Eg. Rockefeller made billions of dollars in the late
19th century. He left his business and fortune to his
children and the Rockefellers became one of the
most powerful families in America as their wealth
was passed from generation to generation.
- Laws and customs ensure that the system of generational
inheritance is protected, such as primogeniture, which states that
the first born son receives his father's inheritance.
- Criticism: Evidence has been found of
monogamous marriage and the nuclear family in
non-capitalist, hunter-gatherer type societies.
This suggests that monogamy and the nuclear
family are not caused by capitalism.
- Therefore his theory is era-dependent, as even in
modern society, there are greater trends towards
leaving money to charities or businesses.
- Therefore his theory is era-dependent, as even in
modern society, there are greater trends towards
leaving money to charities or businesses.
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