Private Property Confiscation

Since Franklin Roosevelt, federal and state governments have slowly but surely claimed that property is a privilege, not a right. The wealth tax is the next step.

Allan J. Feifer | August 21, 2026

Americans traditionally understood that what they owned was theirs, not the government’s. Yet, over the last century, that principle has steadily eroded—from gold confiscation to civil asset forfeiture to proposed wealth taxes. The emerging principle is stark: Your property is yours only to the extent that the State allows you to keep it.

Preliminarily, what does it mean to own something? In America, the traditional answer was straightforward: it meant that the property was yours—not the government’s—and that the State had no claim to it unless you forfeited it through a criminal act or the government seized it through eminent domain for the public good.

Private property was understood as an extension of individual liberty, protected by right and law rather than being a privilege that the government granted at its discretion. That principle was deeply embedded in the American tradition and helped distinguish a free citizen from a subject of the State. That relationship changed dramatically in the 20th century.

Perhaps the most well-documented exercise of government power over private property occurred in 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, requiring Americans to surrender most of their monetary gold to the government at the then-fixed price of $20.67 per ounce. Those who failed to comply faced criminal penalties.

The following year, the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 placed monetary gold under federal ownership and raised the official price of gold to $35 an ounce—a nearly 70 percent increase from the $20.67 price at which Americans had been required to surrender their gold. Whatever the legal justification, the episode demonstrated something deeply unsettling about the power of the State: It could declare lawful property impermissible to own, compel its sale to the government at a price it dictated, and then change the official value of that property after acquiring it. By any ordinary understanding,........

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