Dear David, I read with alarm your proposal to return to feudalism, in which all land is held, as they said, "of" the king! I suppose the power to tax is the power to destroy, and so the difference might not be great, but I'd prefer a land-taxing authority run by politicians in mortal fear of voters than a literal ownership of land by the state, even if i the land-owning state was also beholden to voters. The difference would indeed be negligible if the state consisted of politicians, kings, judges, and bureaucrats who approximated in rectitude the average Swedish civil servant. But economists need to include the actual behavior of Our Friend the State in their analyses, yes? Your 99-year lease point for China rather makes my point. I suppose you would not claim that liberty, or for that matter prosperity, has been increased by the reversion of Hong Kong to the care of civil servants quite far from the Swedish ideal. Warm regards, Deirdre McCloskey