In his latest book, historian Nicholas Mulder examines how the practice of property confiscation has played a foundational role in shaping modern economic and political systems over the past two and a half centuries. Mulder, a professor at Cornell University, explores the complex relationship between dispossession and the establishment of contemporary property rights, arguing that the ability of states to seize and repurpose assets has been integral to their development.
Mulder’s analysis spans a wide array of historical episodes, from well-known events such as Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, to less familiar cases like the 18th-century suppression of the Jesuit order by European Catholic monarchies. The latter, Mulder contends, provided an early blueprint for modern confiscation: a politically threatening group was dispossessed through state power, and their wealth was reallocated to reinforce the state itself. These actions, while often driven by political motives, had significant and lasting economic consequences.
He highlights how confiscation served as a catalyst for economic modernization by breaking up entrenched forms of property ownership that hindered market development. For example, Britain’s enclosure movement transformed common lands into privately owned parcels, fueling urban industrial growth. In France, regions where church lands were seized saw notable increases in agricultural productivity in subsequent decades. Mulder’s research challenges the conventional view that secure property rights must always precede economic growth, suggesting that the state’s capacity both to protect and to rearrange property rights was essential.
The tension between protection and expropriation is evident in the U.S. legal context, where constitutional protections coexist with the government’s power of eminent domain. Mulder points out that U.S. courts have allowed the federal government considerable latitude in property takings, provided fair compensation is given. This principle of compensation, he argues, lent legitimacy to confiscation and enabled states to undertake such actions without excessive political disruption.
Mulder also examines how states used financial mechanisms such as public debt to facilitate compensation, effectively converting confiscated property into government obligations. He notes that the abolition of slavery can be understood as an asset swap, transforming human property into monetary claims backed by public finance. Furthermore, periods of high inflation historically coincided with increased confiscations, as inflation diminished the real cost of compensation.
The book underscores that confiscation has not been confined to left-wing or anti-colonial governments. While nationalizations were common during decolonization—averaging one foreign company seized every four days at their peak—confiscatory measures have served diverse political ends across the ideological spectrum. For instance, land reforms in post-war Japan under U.S. occupation radically altered class structures and inspired leftist figures.
Despite expectations following the Cold War, Mulder contends that confiscation is not a relic of the past. Recent crises such as the global financial downturn, the COVID-19 pandemic, and renewed geopolitical rivalries have increased state involvement in private property and revived asset seizures. The ongoing debates over the fate of billions in frozen Russian central bank assets illustrate that the questions surrounding confiscation remain sharply relevant and historically rooted.
Mulder’s work offers a broad historical framework that contextualizes contemporary issues of economic statecraft, revealing confiscation as a persistent tool through which states have exercised and expanded their power over property and economic resources.