[Phil153]

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The entire point of the argument is that government ownership of land is exactly like the private ownership of land that you hate so much, with the sole difference that private owners are interested in preserving the capital value of the land whereas those in government do not.

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It's good that you say this because this is the point at which we disagree. I and others do not think that private owners are interested in the preserving the long term capital of certain types of goods and land. I think the Amazon (and yes, guaranteed ownership does indeed exist there, very similar to an AC system, in fact) makes that a slam dunk win for me. I also think that markets fail when confronted with ecosystems that require preservation. But this requires a well referenced argument to make a case, which I don't have time for immediately.

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You simply assume that governments will preserve lands and grant you access while assuming that private owners are morons who will destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs. I.e., you assume your entire argument.

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Are you familiar with the golden goose story? This is actually a good analogy for the preservation vs plunder situation. You have a goose that lives forever, and lays a golden egg a week, worth $1000. Or, you can kill the goose and retrieve a diamond egg from its belly, worth $10,000,000. Put 1000 of these in the hands of private owners. What percentage of golden geese still exist after a year? After 10 years? After a century? I think not many.

The fact is that the immediate economic value of many types of land is very low when preserved. For example, companies clear fell large areas of land they actually own, despite huge amounts of evidence that such activities are less profitable and far worse environmentally in the long run compared to managed extraction. WHY??? The answer is because the owners of these businesses want to be wealthy, NOW. Not in 50 years time. And when land is cheap, as it is in many places, exploiting large areas of it quickly is the best way to make a fortune and hurt your competitor. Your theory of private rationality fails miserably in this regard, or at least, fails to take into account people's massive preference for quick profit over very long term gain. And in fact, the market selects for these kind of people by giving them wealth, and makes them land owners in the short term (under a century). This is the core of the reason why capitalism fails dismally at protecting land.

Further to this, the timber industry is an excellent example of governments doing a better job than private businesses at preservation. Governments generally preserve state forests for managed timber extraction and other uses (at least, they do in Australia); they rarely clear fell any area. This is in spite of the disincentives you claim politicians have.

So I think your case is weak. There are many more points to add to the one above, and I agree that more rigor is required to fully debunk it.