Anyone that casually opened the 2019 Sunday Times Rich List at page 48 and knew anything about the history of economic thought could be forgiven for thinking that the French Physiocrat school of economists were right after all.

For a table printed on page 48 asserts that “property” provided the source of wealth for 163 of the 1,000 richest UK-associated individuals and families profiled by the Rich List. And it was the physiocrats that claimed that the wealth of nations was derived solely from the value of land.

But that conclusion is probably erroneous and reflects the arbitrary nature of the Rich List’s classifi...