Once we lived in an America with a bewlildering array of corner lunch counters, interesting bookstores, individualistic neighborhood clothiers, tailors, dressmakers, appliance shops each with its own unique spin on what the owner thought you wanted -- lots of small individualistic enterprises that, like family farms, got passed down through the family from one generation to the next.
The estate tax replaced all these with McDonalds, Borders, The Gap, the ubiquitous extended warrantee, and ADM.
So the theory is simple: the basic method of passing business expertise from one generation to the next -- the family business enterprise -- has been replaced by the franchise operation, all thanks to your friendly neighborhood death tax.
And the next time some smart social reformer demands you watch his heart bleed for all the small local businesses Wal-Mart is killing, just ask him -- "so what do you think the interitance tax is doing?"
I can't imagine most liberals are going to like the idea that the estate tax helped bring about the rise of Wal-Mart.