Though the modern state successfully frames itself as the ultimate guarantor of positive rights, it is the opposite: a systematic violator of negative property rights. This is possible because the modern state is associated with the advent of the rule of law. To understand why society remains so blind to the ever-expanding “legal spoliation” by the state (to use Bastiat’s expression), it is necessary to look at the inherent duality between the psychological universality of property and its messy historical reality.

Six years after the covid pandemic and nearly two years after he was pardoned for any and all crimes he may have committed since 2014 relating to his role at HHS, Anthony Fauci was back in the news last week.

[Slobodian, Quinn. Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right. Brooklyn, New York: Zone Books, 2025. 279pp. $29.95.]

Economists who worry about wealth disparities between racial groups are preoccupied with addressing the causes of racial inequality. They all have different theories and explanations about the causes of racial wealth gaps, but the prevailing assumption is that some form of unfairness must be driving it.