Wealth managers talk about rags to riches in 3 generations;
There’s a generation that make all the money – self-made. They work hard, have positive values and a sensible attitude towards the wealth they created and tend to be responsible with it, having worked hard to create it.
The next generation grow up knowing some of this story, and with most of the values of their parents. Having seen the sheer effort their parents made, they tend to be responsible with the wealth.
Then the grandkids come along. All they know is big houses, private schools, wealth that’s just ‘there’. They’ve not worked for it and neither did they experience their grandparents working for it so they tend to take it for granted and squander the lot.
It’s only the successful wealthy families that can engender in each generation that their job is to look after that wealth and pass it on to the next generation.
I have a theory that the Western world is going through an extended version of this – the Empire/Victorian generation built the infrastructure and institutions that our grandparents grew up with (look at how many UK houses are Victorian, and the railways for e.g.)
Our grandparents generation knew enough about it to not take the wealth for granted – helped no doubt by the scarcities of material goods during and between WW1, Great Depression and WW2. Then the baby boomers came along and went ‘wa-haaaay’ and wasted the lot. We’re now picking up the pieces and could well be doing so for a couple more generations. Unless of course we can find some new way to generate wealth for ourselves…