I don’t know enough about world history to answer this question, so I turn to the SDMB.
Anecdotally, world history is full of people who have accumulated wealth, power, fame, etc. Many of these people have had the desire and drive to “find and heir” to carry on their legacies.
Looking back through history, however, I am at a loss to identify many persons whose heirs have gone on to fill the shoes of their predecessors. I guess British Royalty would be some kind of exception.
It seems that the benefits given to heirs would eventually be lost or watered down naturally as the family tree grows.
Looking at past political leaders (ancient and modern such as Alexnader the Great, George Washington, etc.) as well as others of the powerful “elite” (inventors, merchants, corporate leaders, etc. such as Rockefeller) how well are “legacies” of power, wealth, and fame preserved by heirs?
Is the desire and drive to “find an hier” essentially futile? Do these people not realize that all of their power and wealth will be eventually watered down and/or taken by conquest? Where are Alexander the Great’s great great great great grandkids today?
Discuss (without starting a debate on inheritance taxes).
In the sense of pre-modern royalty? Tons of examples, from most major dynasties. If there weren’t any, they wouldn’t have ever become major dynasties ;).
The problem is, of course, is that in pre-modern societies, where wielding power effectively often depended so much on personal ability, the quality of monarchs is going to vary widely. Still, there are plenty of examples of heirs that equaled or bettered their fathers.
In Alexander the Great’s case he had the problem of dieing to young, leaving a posthumous infant heir and one illegitimate son only a few years old. In that environment, with ambitious generals, mostly from noble houses and used to command, controlling the armies and purse strings, poor Alexander IV’s deck was stacked against him from the start. He also had the spectacular bad fortune to fall under the thumb of the one man who had truly despised Alexander from childhood - Cassander ( Kassandros ), son of Antipater, Alexander’s governor in Macedon.
So, a few of them were lucky enough to rule some dynasties for a while, but they’re all gone now.
I guess at the time, they thought it possible that their little empires would continue on forever and eventually rule the world?
Also, what about people who have amassed fortunes? How long does it take to water the riches down, or do the hiers, such as the Rockefellers, manage to keep it going?
Far as I know the Rockefeller’s are still pretty wealthy. Ditto the direect descendants of most of the great American robber-barons, I think ( though I’m open to correction on this ).
Dunno what you’re arguing for exactly - Are you saying that eventually patrimoinies will decay away to nothing over the centuries? Well, sure, quite possibly. And eventually the universe will cease to be.
But so what? It still doesn’t relieve the urge to try to make things better for/pass the mantle of authority to one’s children. That, I would think, is probably hardwired biologically. And usually we aren’t talking foresight into future generations - Generally I’d bet it goes no farther than one’s immediate offspring.
Sidenote for Alexander - Supposedly his last words were that his empire should go “to the strongest” :). Though he may have been saying “to Craterus”, a sound-alike name and his second-senior officer and the newly appointed governor of Macedon/Europe ( never took office as Alexander died while he was in route ).
I’m not arguing for anything really. I’m just curious if anything can be said generally about the transfer of wealth or power to successive generations.
I saw a descendant of Abe Lincoln on TV one day and thought… why aren’t his descendants more prominent in society 150 years later?
I read a thread that mentioned Alexander the Great’s desire to have an heir (beyond the desire to have children), and I thought that his efforts in that regard seem futile because his empire is gone.
It just seems that all the welath and power in most cases eventually disspiates or is stripped from the possessor in some fashion. So, if someone today was alive and wealthy and/or powerful and desirous of a “worthy heir”, I would wonder why that person even bothers to think in those terms since the lessons of history show that these successive transfers of power and wealth end up amounting to nothing.
Am I wrong?
Ah, so you are saying those that dream of visions of their acheivements being preserved forever in posterity by their heirs are likely deluding themselves? Yes, I’d probably agree, especially if we are talking about empires - All empires eventually die or transmogrify to the point where they are almost completelty unrecognizable.
But the folks that have these visions are generally megalomaniacs ( or at least egomaniacs ) of a sort, so reason may not be their strong point. Also, in their own mind they may think just because nobody else has ever done it, doesn’t mean they will fail.
However if we are just talking the desire to pass something on, I think that is completely natural and human. Alexander may not have been interested in preserving his empire forever ( though he probably was ) - He may have just been interested in causing a fundamental shift in human history by preserving his union of the great world cultures known to him. If that had been his goal in part he succeeded, in many ways he failed, but success did not rest on maintainence of his empire in the exact dimensions, or any dimensions at all, for all of history.