Introduction: a phrase that says a great deal
There is an expression I have heard many times and that, as the years have passed, has struck me as increasingly revealing: “I need to set my son up.” Not “I need to help him grow,” not “I need to teach him a trade,” not “I need to give him the means to stand on his own two feet.” Quite simply: set him up.
The phrase sounds harmless. Yet it can conceal an entire view of family, work and even power. Setting a child up can mean, in some cases, finding him a shortcut, securing him a position, opening a door that remains closed to others. Sometimes the father does not even see what he is doing as an abuse. He considers it a duty.
And this is precisely what I find most interesting. The problem does not necessarily begin with people who think of themselves as dishonest. It can begin with people who consider themselves excellent fathers. “If I can do something for my son, why shouldn't I?” is a question that seems almost natural within a family. But its meaning changes completely when that “can” comes from public office, a management role or the ability to influence careers, suppliers, customers, competitive recruitment or decisions.
A father is free to do what he wishes with his own savings. He can pay for his son's university education, lend him money, buy him a house, finance a business for him. That is his own wealth. But professional power does not belong to him in the same way. A public appointment, a corporate responsibility or an institutional position is a means entrusted to someone to carry out a task. Using it, even indirectly, to build a future for one's relatives creates a dangerous confusion between what one owns and what one temporarily administers.
The episode that stayed with me
I recall with sadness the case of an officer in the Guardia di Finanza, Italy's tax and financial police, who worked on inspections to combat tax evasion. His son opened a tax consultancy practice. The practice, at least as far as I could observe from the outside, began attracting many clients and did very well.
Then the father retired. After some time, client numbers fell and the practice had to close.
I cannot know why each individual client had chosen that practice, and it would not be right to turn a memory into an allegation of unlawful conduct. What struck me was the symbolic meaning of the episode. As long as the father held a position of power, his son's business flourished. When that position came to an end, a significant part of that success gradually came to an end as well.
Perhaps there were entirely legitimate explanations. But the coincidence prompted a question that I have applied to many similar situations over the years: how much of a person's success truly belongs to that person, and how much belongs instead to the network of power surrounding them?
When the father loses his power, what is the son left with?
Helping is not the same as setting someone up
It would be absurd to expect a parent not to help their children. Family life also involves passing things on: experience, skills, values, opportunities and, where possible, financial resources. A child growing up alongside a doctor will get to know the world of medicine earlier than others; a craftsperson's child will probably be familiar with the tools; an entrepreneur's child will hear about customers, balance sheets and suppliers from an early age.
The point, then, is not to build a society in which every generation has to pretend to start from scratch. That would be impossible and even unnatural.
The distinction that matters to me is a different one: passing on what is yours is one thing; passing on to your child the advantages arising from power you temporarily exercise over others is another.
I can teach my son what I know. I can introduce him to someone. I can advise him. I can even invest my own money in his business. But if I am the one who decides who gets hired, who wins a consulting contract, who receives an assignment, who gets promoted or which businesses will be inspected, the situation changes.
At that moment, I am no longer just a father. I am also the person entrusted with a responsibility. And those two identities can come into conflict.
A spectrum of situations: from normal to questionable
Not all forms of family help carry the same weight. It would be a mistake to lump everything together. We can picture a scale.
At the first level is the most ordinary kind of family help: education, financial support, advice, experience, encouragement. No problem.
At the second level, connections come into play. The father introduces his son to people in his circle, helps him get to know an industry, tells him about an opportunity. This is a real advantage, but it can remain within acceptable limits.
At the third level, the son begins receiving opportunities that he would have been unlikely to obtain without his surname or his father's position. Here the issue becomes more delicate.
At the fourth level, the parent's power directly or indirectly affects the decisions of those offering those opportunities. Even without an explicit phone call, it may be enough to know that one is dealing with the son of someone who can help or harm one's interests.
At the final level is the direct use of one's position: pressure, exchanges of favours, decisions designed to benefit a relative. Here we are no longer talking about mere social privilege, but about something that can also have legal implications.
Between the first and last levels lies a large grey area. And it is precisely in that area that personal conscience should be stricter than the law, not less so.
Examples: how power can become an inheritance
The company executive and his son's recruitment
A senior executive deals daily with suppliers, customers and partner companies. His son is looking for a job. One of these companies hires him. Formally, everything may be above board. The young man may be qualified and even exceptionally good. But it is hard to ignore the question: would he have been selected in the same way if his father had not been an executive with whom that company needed to keep doing business? The interesting test comes when the father changes roles or retires. If the son continues to progress because he has developed skills of his own, the initial advantage has turned into personal merit. If, on the other hand, his career suddenly stalls, it is natural to wonder what was really driving it.
The executive who creates a tailor-made job
An even more obvious variation occurs when a position suddenly appears at precisely the moment the son needs one. An organisational chart is changed, a consulting role is created, a temporary collaboration opens up. Nobody writes “position intended for the son of...” on the document. The mechanism can be much more elegant. The requirement is designed so that one particular person is naturally the most suitable candidate.
The hospital department head and his son's practice
Imagine a well-known head of a hospital department. His son is a doctor and opens a private practice. The father does not need to tell anyone to go there. It is enough for the surname to circulate, for colleagues and patients to know of the family connection, for a few introductions to take place in the right corridors. Here too, the son may be excellent. The point is not to deny his ability, but to recognise that the family's reputation is a form of starting capital that others do not possess.
The university professor and an academic career
Universities are among the settings where this problem has been discussed most often. A professor's son may have a real passion for the same subject. It would be unfair to prevent him from pursuing that career. But the father knows academics, journals, conferences, research groups and opportunities for collaboration. He knows which doors to knock on and, above all, is already known to the people behind those doors. The advantage does not lie solely in possible favouritism at the final stage: it begins many years earlier, through privileged access to information and connections.
The local politician and his son's professional practice
A local official has contacts with businesses, professionals, associations and residents. His son opens a practice as a lawyer, accountant, engineer or consultant. Suddenly clients start arriving. Perhaps they are all convinced of his ability. But someone might also think that having a professional relationship with the son of an influential person cannot hurt. No promise is necessary. Power can work without saying a word.
The public-sector executive and his son the consultant
A public-sector executive manages procedures, permits, inspections or relationships with businesses. His son works as a consultant for companies operating in that very sector. Even without any intervention by the father, the perceived conflict of interest is clear. A company may wonder whether awarding that contract would be advantageous not only because of the son's skills, but also because of the indirect relationship it would create.
The judge, senior official or regulatory authority
The greater the parent's ability to affect other people's lives, the greater the caution should be. If someone exercises powers of inspection, judgement, supervision or authorisation, even the appearance of a family advantage can damage trust in the institution. In these cases, the issue is not just whether the son has been favoured. It concerns everyone who must be able to trust in the impartiality of that role.
The entrepreneur and his son the executive
In a private business, the situation is different, because the owner risks their own capital and can legitimately choose to involve their children. A great many family businesses have started and grown in this way. Yet here too there is an organisational problem. If a son becomes an executive without having developed the necessary skills, employees, business partners, suppliers and the company itself may pay the price. Kinship may confer the right to own, but it does not automatically guarantee the ability to manage.
The lawyer who passes his practice on to his son
This is a different case again. A professional can legitimately bring his son into his business and introduce him to clients. It is a common form of professional succession. Yet it is interesting to observe that the son inherits something far more valuable than the office furniture: he inherits trust already earned, reputation, contacts and a client base. There is not necessarily anything improper about this, but it is a good example of how different people's starting points in life can be.
The notary, the accountant, the architect: the value of a surname
In some professions, a surname functions almost like a brand. Those joining the family practice start with a stock of reputational capital that others have to build from scratch. Here too, it would be wrong to demonise this. But it would be just as wrong to pretend that everyone had the same opportunities.
The association president and his son the supplier
An association, a foundation, a sporting or cultural organisation buys services: communications, IT, catering, consultancy, maintenance. If the president's son owns a business offering precisely those services, the temptation to give him a contract may even seem rational: “I know him, I trust him.” Yet it is precisely that personal trust that makes more rigorous scrutiny necessary, because the money being administered is not necessarily private money.
The headteacher and opportunities for the family
Think of a headteacher, the head of a training organisation or someone who manages courses, projects and collaborations. If a relative works in the same field, even small assignments, teaching engagements, consulting contracts or projects can give rise to suspicion. Perhaps the person really is the best available; that is precisely why transparent procedures are needed to demonstrate it.
The manager who favours the supplier employing his son
A son is hired by a company that sells services to his father's company. Subsequently, that supplier wins new contracts. Neither event, taken on its own, proves anything. But the combination creates a situation in which transparency is essential. A good system should not force others to rely on the executive's personal virtue: it should prevent him from making the decision alone.
The father who calls “just to check”
Then there is the apparently innocent phone call: “My son sent in his CV; I just wanted to know whether it had arrived.” If the caller has no power at all, the remark may truly be trivial. If the caller is an important customer, a senior executive, an official or someone on whom financial decisions depend, the same remark carries much more weight. The words are identical; the power behind them changes everything.
Pulling strings presented as a simple introduction
“I'm not asking you to hire him, I'm only asking you to meet him.” It is a perfect formula, because it formally leaves the decision-maker free to choose. But that freedom may be largely theoretical if the person making the request is someone on whom business, appointments or future relationships depend. In complex societies, power rarely needs to issue explicit orders.
The son who starts a business close to his father's world
The phenomenon is not limited to recruitment. A son may open an agency, a professional practice, an IT company, a communications company or a property business. If the parent occupies a central position in the same circles, the son's initial market may overlap almost perfectly with his father's professional network. The question remains the same: are those clients buying a service, or are they buying a relationship?
Succession within organisations
Sometimes the son receives not just a job but, gradually, his father's own position. He starts as an associate, then takes on responsibility, and eventually moves into a leadership role. Each step, taken individually, may seem reasonable. But looking at the entire path can reveal that the succession had been planned from the beginning.
The favour that costs its giver nothing
There is an important moral difference between giving one's son a hundred thousand euros of one's own money and securing him a position paid for by others. In the first case, the father gives up a resource of his own. In the second, he can appear generous without personally paying the cost of the favour. It is much easier to be generous with other people's jobs, money or opportunities.
The unspoken exchange between two powerful fathers
Finally, there is a particularly enduring form: I help your son, you help mine. No agreement needs to be written down. Over time, professional elites can build networks of reciprocity in which each person avoids openly favouring their own relatives but favours those of others. The social outcome can be similar, while being much harder to detect.
Power does not need to be exercised openly
One of the most common mistakes is to think that favouritism exists only when someone says something explicit: “Hire my son.” In reality, human organisations operate through much subtler signals.
An employee knows who can decide their promotion. A supplier knows who can renew their contract. A professional knows who can recommend them to other clients. A business knows who can make a procedure easy or difficult for it. In this context, it is often enough for everyone to know about a family relationship.
The strength of power also lies in not having to use it. If everyone knows there is a gun on the table, there is no need to fire it. Similarly, if everyone knows how influential someone is, that person does not have to ask for anything.
This makes the problem very hard to prove, but no less interesting from a moral standpoint. The law needs facts, actions and evidence. Ethical reflection, by contrast, can also examine the conditions that make certain behaviours possible.
The son may be excellent: the problem remains
One objection is inevitable: “But the son is good at what he does.” That may be entirely true. The professor's son may be a very good researcher. The lawyer's son may be an excellent lawyer. The entrepreneur's son may become a better manager than his father.
The issue is not about denying individual merit. It is about recognising that merit and privilege can coexist.
A person can be capable and, at the same time, have had opportunities that others, equally capable, never received. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
Indeed, the most effective privilege is precisely the kind that, after opening the first door, allows a person to demonstrate their real qualities. After ten years, it will be hard to distinguish how much of their career depends on that initial advantage and how much on the talent shown afterwards.
That is why I have little time either for those who attribute every success of the children of influential people exclusively to their surname, or for the opposite view that insists the surname has no importance at all. Reality is almost always more complex.
The problem from the perspective of those left out
So far we have looked at the scene from the father's and the son's perspectives. But there is a third person who often disappears from the story: the person who was not chosen.
For every position filled, there is someone who did not get it. For every consulting contract awarded, there are professionals who were not called. Whenever a client is steered in one direction, there are others who could have competed for that client's business.
Favouritism is insidious because it makes the beneficiary visible and the person harmed invisible. The son gains a concrete opportunity; whoever loses it will often never know they have lost it.
This also has a cultural effect. If young people perceive careers as depending above all on family, connections and protection, they may stop believing in the value of education and effort. Not because merit does not exist, but because it is seen as insufficient.
A society in which many people think “you get nowhere unless you know someone” loses something more important than a single competitive selection or a single appointment: it loses trust.
The invisible inheritance
We are used to thinking of inheritance as houses, land, money and securities. But there are much less visible inheritances: relationships, reputation, access to information, financial security, familiarity with certain circles, the ability to speak to powerful people without feeling out of place.
A young person who grows up in a family established in a particular sector often knows things that nobody has formally taught them. They know the timing, the language, the people, even how to dress and behave in that setting.
This inheritance cannot be eliminated, and it would not even be desirable to erase the passing of experience from one generation of a family to the next. But we can at least recognise it.
The problem arises when this natural inheritance is supplemented by the active use of power to prevent others from competing on reasonably equal terms.
When the father harms the very son he wants to help
There is also a paradox. A father who wants to set his son up can end up doing him a grave disservice.
If every door is opened from the outside, the son will never know for certain which doors he could have opened on his own. Every success may come with a nagging doubt: did they choose me because I am good at what I do, or because I am my father's son?
Others may attribute even truly deserved achievements to the surname. The initial advantage thus becomes a kind of permanent shadow.
Moreover, a career built through protection can be fragile. As long as the protector retains his influence, everything works. When that influence ends, the son suddenly discovers that he has no network of his own.
That is exactly what struck me about the episode with which I began: a success that had seemed rock-solid turned out, at least apparently, to be far more dependent on circumstances than one might have imagined.
True help, then, might be almost the opposite of setting a child up: giving him enough tools to face even a world in which his father counts for nothing.
The most dangerous phrase: “Everyone does it”
When these subjects are discussed, one justification often appears: “Everyone does it.” It is an enormously powerful phrase because it turns questionable behaviour into a rule for survival.
If everyone pulls strings for their children, the father who does not do so seems almost irresponsible. He is no longer considered principled: he is considered naive.
A collective mechanism takes hold. Each person can say that others forced their hand. “If I don't help my son, he'll fall behind the children of those who get help.”
It is the same logic that can turn an exception into a system. Nobody feels responsible for creating the system, because everyone claims merely to have adapted to it.
Yet someone has to break the chain. Otherwise, society ends up rewarding not just talent, but above all the ability of families to occupy positions from which they can distribute opportunities.
Private and public: they are not the same
It is important to make a clear distinction between private wealth and public responsibility.
If I own a shop and decide to leave it to my daughter, I am disposing of something that belongs to me. One can debate whether she is capable of running it, but the principle is simple.
If, on the other hand, I run a public office, that office is not mine. I cannot treat assignments, recruitment, information or relationships as though they were part of the family's assets.
The same applies, with some differences, in large private organisations. A director or executive does not necessarily own the company they manage. They have been given a mandate and must act in the interests of the organisation, not their own family.
This distinction seems elementary, but much questionable behaviour stems precisely from forgetting it: power is experienced psychologically as personal property.
Nepotism does not necessarily begin with a crime
The word “nepotism” immediately brings to mind scandals, rigged competitive recruitment and irregular hiring. But the cultural phenomenon is broader.
It can begin with a phone call. With a CV placed at the top of the pile. With a meeting arranged. With a client referred. With a consulting contract awarded without looking for alternatives. With a door that opens a little more easily.
Many of these behaviours may even be perfectly lawful. But what is lawful does not necessarily settle the question of what is appropriate.
A society cannot rely on courts alone. It also needs people willing to forgo voluntarily the use of every possible advantage.
Transparency as an antidote
We cannot stop people from having children, friends, relatives and relationships. But we can build procedures that make it harder to turn those relationships into hidden privileges.
The first defence is transparency. If there is a family relationship, declaring it should be normal. The problem is not acknowledging a conflict of interest; the problem is pretending it does not exist.
The second defence is stepping aside. If a decision directly or indirectly concerns a relative, the person with the power should take a step back.
The third is real competition: criteria set in advance, multiple candidates, reasons given for decisions, a traceable record.
The fourth is the separation of responsibilities. A sound system is not based on the idea that the executive is an honest person. It is based on the idea that even an honest person can find themselves in a situation in which it is better for them not to decide.
These rules are not meant to declare everyone guilty. They serve precisely the opposite purpose: they also protect those who act properly from suspicion that they do not.
A very simple thought experiment
When I encounter a situation of this kind, I find a simple question useful: would I accept the same decision if the beneficiary were someone else's son?
If an executive thinks it normal to hire his own son in a particular way, he should ask himself whether he would consider it equally normal for a colleague to do the same thing.
Another question is even more effective: would I feel comfortable if every detail of this decision were published in a newspaper tomorrow?
Many behaviours that seem innocent in the privacy of an office immediately look different when we imagine having to explain them publicly.
Imagined transparency is often a good moral test.
Merit does not mean everyone starts from the same place
The word “merit” is used a great deal in discussions of these subjects. But merit is not a simple matter.
Two young people may have the same talent and work equally hard. One, however, already knows the right people, can afford years of unpaid training, has a family-owned home available and has someone to explain how the sector works. The other must also work to support themselves.
If the first eventually achieves better results, that does not mean they have no merit. It means the result arises from the combination of merit and starting conditions.
Acknowledging this takes nothing away from someone whose family was able to help them. It simply avoids turning an advantage into moral superiority.
The problem I address in this essay is more specific still: when the use of institutional or professional power is added to the inevitable inequalities between families, the gap widens further.
Being a good father can mean holding back
Perhaps this is the hardest part: a good father is not necessarily the one who uses every means available to make life easier for his son.
Sometimes being a good father means choosing not to make a phone call.
It means saying: “I'll advise you, prepare you and help you financially if you need it, but you have to open this door yourself.”
It is a less spectacular form of love. It does not immediately produce a job or a client. But it can produce something more important: independence.
A parent who does not use his power to set his son up also sends him a message of confidence: I believe you can make it without my having to tilt the playing field.
The dignity of being able to say: I made it on my own
There is a satisfaction that no string-pulling can provide: knowing that you were chosen by someone who owed your family nothing.
Receiving an offer because your work was appreciated. Succeeding in a selection process in which nobody knew your father. Building a client base that stays even when your surname stops carrying weight.
This independence is worth far more than the initial convenience.
Because, in the end, success is not just about obtaining a position. It is also about knowing that the position holds when the scaffolding is removed.
Conclusion: do not secure your child a place, give him freedom
I do not judge a father's desire to help his children. I understand it perfectly. It is probably one of the most natural feelings there is.
But precisely because it is natural, it can become dangerous when it meets power.
Those who hold an important position should remember that some of the resources at their disposal are not truly theirs. They may administer them, but they may not leave them to their children as an inheritance.
Personal money can become an inheritance. Experience can become an inheritance. Values can become an inheritance. Time devoted to one's children can become an inheritance. Even a network of contacts is inevitably passed on, within certain limits.
But public responsibility, regulatory authority and the power to hire, promote or award appointments should not become family assets.
And perhaps the final question is very simple. What do we want to leave our children: a position, or the ability to earn one?
A father who sets his son up may secure him an advantage for a few years. A father who teaches him not to need someone to set him up leaves him something that can last a lifetime.
A father should not concern himself with securing his son a position. He should try to give him the means not to need someone to secure one for him.
What I Would Like to Leave My Children
My children, I would like to leave all three of you the certainty that you can ask for help without having to give up standing on your own two feet. You should not be ashamed of what you have received: affection, advice, education, time. But remember that an advantage you have been given does not make you a better person than someone who did not have it.
Learn a trade, listen to those who know more than you, make yourselves known for the work you do. If one door stays closed, look for another without thinking that your worth depends on a single judgement. Accept support, but do not expect someone to take an opportunity away from others to reserve it for you.
And if one day you are the ones making the decisions, remember those waiting on the other side of the door who have no one to make a phone call for them. Helping your children is love; giving others a real chance is respect. I would like you to be able to hold on to both.
Papy