To what extent does the social practice of inheritance undermine social justice? Indeed, if inheritance does further inequality, should we, in order to ensure a fairer society, restrict the right to bequeath?

A mainstay of political philosophy since the late seventeenth century, questions such as these were still vigorously debated in the public sphere in the early twentieth century. However, one hundred years later one rarely hears the topic raised in public debate, despite the fact that, as anthropologist David Graeber and many others have argued, inequality is once again on the rise, and demonstrably so.