Abstract
Wealth law is full of ghosts, ghosts everywhere all at once. As a form of both preservation and disruption, a form of continuance as well as a form of interruption, ghosts are reminders of the past in its multiple forms. But they are also figures that prompt consideration of the present as well as speculation about the future. Jacques Derrida, who suggested the idea of “hauntology,” posited haunting and the ghostly as being “time out of joint,” a reference to Hamlet’s confused cry upon seeing his father’s ghost that Derrida analyzes extensively. In this sense, ghosts are akin to inheritance, a legal schema in which the past persists into both present and future. Like ghosts, inheritance and wealth transfer laws represent ruptures in time, enabling the destabilizing presence of the past alongside the various possibilities for the present and future. ...
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2023
Recommended Citation
Allison Tait, The Haunting of Wealth Law, 49 ACTEC L.J. 99 (2023).
