In-book it’s explicitly partly about inherited wealth; the passage wherein Vimes formulates his theory is preceded by a section about how the very richest people, like Lady Sybil, can afford to live as though poor in some ways (wearing her mother’s hand-me-downs, etc) and is immediately followed by this:
The point was that Sybil Ramkin hardly ever had to buy anything. The mansion was full of this big, solid furniture, bought by her ancestors. It never wore out. She had whole boxes full of jewelery which just seemed to have accumulated over the centuries. Vimes had seen a wine cellar that a regiment of speleologists could get so happily drunk in that they wouldn’t mind that they’d got lost without trace.
Lady Sybil Ramkin lived quite comfortably from day to day by spending, Vimes estimated, about half as much as he did.
In-book it’s explicitly partly about inherited wealth; the passage wherein Vimes formulates his theory is preceded by a section about how the very richest people, like Lady Sybil, can afford to live as though poor in some ways (wearing her mother’s hand-me-downs, etc) and is immediately followed by this:
As the previous post points out, she obviously didn’t.