A property right, the standard view maintains, is a proper subset of the most complete and comprehensive set of incidents for full ownership of a thing. The subsidiary assumption is that the pieces that are property rights compose the whole that is ownership or property, i.e., that property rights explain property. In reversing the standard view I argue that (1) a custom of intelligent and meaningful human action explains property and that (2) as a custom, property is a historical process of selecting actions conditional on the context. My task is to explain how a physical world of human bodies with minds that feel, think, know, and want gives rise to a custom of property with meaning and purpose. Property is primary because ideas are primary.
Recent research has shown how experts may fail in their duty as advisors by providing advice that leads to a worse outcome than that anticipated by the user of expert opinion. However, those models have focused on the immediate effects of the failure on experts and nonexperts. Using a cascading network failure model, I show how expert failure can cascade throughout multiple sectors, even those not necessarily purchasing the expert opinion. Consequently, even relatively small failures end up having outsized aggregate effects. To provide evidence of my theory, I look at two case studies of COVID expert advice to show how one seemingly minor failure ended up contributing to the pandemic. I conclude with a discussion on institutional frameworks that can prevent such cascades.