Justifying inherited wealth: a UK case study on conflicting orders of worth

Intergenerational gifting and inheritance are increasingly understood as a key element of the reproduction of inequality over time. And yet, the centrality of gifting and inheritance—particularly for the purposes of home ownership—has grown at precisely the same time as norms of meritocracy have become more entrenched. How, then, do people reconcile belief in meritocracy with the receipt of unearned economic gifts? Drawing on interviews with first-time homeowners who had bought property with familial gifts or inheritances, this chapter explores what happens when competing moral logics of justification—the “domestic” and family-orientated on the one hand and the “civic” or meritocratic on the other—collide. While these principles appear to be in conflict, we show how people use the idea of an “intergenerational self” to construct the receipt of financial gifts as evidence of meritocracy at work. The recasting of inherited advantage as “meritocratic” makes it easier to accept the unequal outcomes that ensue.