Liberty and Property

Every Freeborn Subject of England is heir by Birthright unto that un-paralleled privilege of Liberty and Property, beyond all the Nations in the world beside; and it is to be wished that all men did rightly understand their own happiness therein.

— William Penn, 1687

In 2010, when I was briefly and uncomfortably a front-bench spokesman for my party in the European Parliament, I had to deal with a directive to harmonise inheritance laws across the EU. The proposal was a technical one, to do with what happened to the belongings of people who died intestate while living in another EU state. But it revealed a striking difference between British and Continental notions of property rights.

In most of Europe, an individual cannot bequeath his possessions as he pleases. There are laws that, for example, guarantee a portion of his estate to surviving widows and children. In some states, you have discretion over only a third of your assets at death.

In Britain, by contrast, as in most of…