> The land alone has likely increased in value in the past two centuries that its fair market value is more than $10m - but as far as I know my family has no in

> The land alone has likely increased in value in the past two centuries that its fair market value is more than $10m - but as far as I know my family has no interest in selling it, and as far as I know no one in my family has the means to pay taxes on that much value. One reason for taxing property is to force productive use of the fenced-in commons. If your land isn't being used in a way that enables payment of the full tax burden, then it should probably be sold off to people who are willing to help society extract the full value of that land. And taxes on inherited land should be attenuated, in part, to ensure productive use of land. Where you see an unfair confiscation of your family's birthright, I see an unproductive use of the commons. The whole moral justification of fencing off the commons is to enable more productive use; if that productive use isn't going to happen, then we should either take down the fence or let someone else manage the land. Or, suppose that's not the justification for private property and everything is birthright. The just and right birthright to land settled in central Arkansas in the 1800s probably belongs to the Osage.