Joel Kotkin contemplates it:
The Social Welfare Research Institute at Boston College estimated that a minimum of $41 trillion would pass between generations from 1998 to 2052. This huge transfer, the researchers believe, will usher in what they call “a golden age of philanthropy.” Even as most younger Americans struggle to obtain decent jobs and secure property, the Welfare Institute concluded, America is moving toward an “inheritance-based economy” where access to the last generation’s wealth could prove a critical determinant of both influence and power.
He realizes that “the biggest long-term impact may come from the nonprofit institutions that the wealthy fund”:
Nonprofit foundations have been growing rapidly in size and influence since the late ’20s, paralleling the expansion of other parts of the clerisy like the universities and government. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of nonprofits increased 25 percent to more than 1.5 million. Their total employment has also soared: By 2010, 10.7 million people were employed by nonprofits—more than the number of people working in the construction and finance sectors combined—and the category has expanded far more rapidly than the rest of the economy, adding two million jobs since 2002. By 2010, nonprofits accounted for an economy of roughly $780 billion and paid upwards of 9 percent of wages and 10 percent of jobs in the overall economy.
Nonprofits, due to their accumulated wealth, are able to thrive even in tough times, adding jobs even in the worst years of the Great Recession. In the past these organizations might have tended to be conservative, as inherited wealth followed the old notions of noblesse oblige and supported traditional aid to the poor, such as scholarships and food banks. But the new rich, particularly the young, tend to be more progressive, or at least gentry liberal.
The Dish 