dominate

When the rate of return on capital significantly exceeds the growth rate of the economy (as it did through much of history until the nineteenth century and as is likely to be the case again in the twenty-first century), then it logically follows that inherited wealth grows faster than output and income. People with inherited wealth need save only a portion of their income from capital to see that capital grow more quickly than the economy as a whole. Under such conditions, it is almost inevitable that inherited wealth will dominate wealth amassed from a lifetime’s labor by a wide margin, and the concentration of capital will attain extremely high levels—levels potentially incompatible with the meritocratic values and principles of social justice fundamental to modern democratic societies. 

Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014: 26)

utilitarian blue

When in the distance there's nothing but family and fortune making, the world seems to wither up, the blinds are closed; but what else? To make a mark in history, become an exception, tip the evolutionary scale, walk with a sense of import and justification, in short, to struggle to become something of significance – what a laugh! Significance is irrelevant and opinion is inculcated by the media, or never rises above what the subconscious inherits from the family. Policy is in the hands of business, academia is controlled by sycophants, liberty is limited by the available funds. All that is left of culture is an expensive distraction from suffering, or, worse, a distraction from boredom. And most saddening of all, appreciation has become a function of selfishness, no longer an act of admiration or respect but simply one of want and consumption. To the ancient Greeks the purpose of life was happiness, but happiness is bandied around by so many hawkers that counterfeits are the rule.

And why? Because it all increases marginal utility?

critique

The only critique of a philosophy that is possible and that proves something, namely trying to see whether one can live in accordance with it, has never been taught at universities: all that has ever been taught is a critique of words by means of other words.  

Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as educator §8