Wealth built by the first generation is maintained by the second and lost by the third.
Attested cross-culturally, including rice paddy to rice paddy in Japan and clogs to clogs in Lancashire. It is the folk twin of Hansen's law and of Ibn Khaldun's dynastic cycle.
In practice
- A founder's fortune divided among four children and then eleven grandchildren is, by the third generation, eleven ordinary inheritances.
- The mechanism has more to do with dispersion across heirs and reversion to average competence than with moral decline, which is what the adage implies.
- Standing
- The folk twin of Hansen's law and Ibn Khaldun's dynastic cycle.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- Proverbs that recur across cultures