Still More on Estate Taxes

Tom's question about CST's concern for the potential social effects of large inherited wealth, particularly "effects such as increased inequality in life opportunities and starting points (which differs from inequality in outcomes) and the potential for increased stratification and a less fluid society" seems to me to be key to answering Rob's initial question about the estate tax:

can we agree that the existence of the estate tax -- putting aside questions of rate, when it kicks in, etc. -- is supported by CST, and perhaps more strongly, that its elimination would be condemned by CST? 

When Fr. Ken Himes gave his wonderful introduction to CST to those of us gathered at Fordham this past June, he told us that among the foundational principles underlying CST is an understanding of equality not as strict equality, but rather as relative equality.  He cited people like Pope Paul VI and John Ryan as developing this notion that there are ceilings to what's acceptable in terms of accumulation of wealth, just as there are floors to what's acceptable in terms of poverty levels.  When the inequality between those at the top and those on the bottom becomes too severe, it endangers the bonds of community that hold us together.  As I understood this idea, those with too much wealth are in just as much danger of losing the bonds of community, of dropping out of the "human family," as those with too little wealth. 

If I am understanding this idea of "relative equality" correctly, and if Himes is right in suggesting that this is foundational for CST, doesn't that provide general support for at least the existence of an  estate tax, even if the details of it have to be filtered through all the competing claims of prudential considerations like what the effect will be on family farms, whether we should just let Bill Gates & Warren Buffet funnel things back to the community however they want to do it, and whether Paris Hilton has entirely dropped out of the human family?

Lisa