> Most people would describe government owned property as public
Yes, because they are using a public/private dichotomy which makes a lot of sense distinguishing kinds of ownership within capitalism, but has nothing to do with the socialist use of the term, where “private property” is a central feature of capitalism, and it's alternative (when it concerns the means of production) is not something which exists in “pure” capitalism.
> because all citizens are allowed to have a say in the management of the property, not just some of them
And this is exactly why many schools of socialist thought see centralized state control, even in a democratic state, as generally private property; the particular workers whose labor is applied to the means of production have their control so diluted by other parties that the control is almost as completely alienated from them as in the case where they have no ownership.
>And this is exactly why many schools of socialist thought see centralized state control, even in a democratic state, as generally private property; the particular workers whose labor is applied to the means of production have their control so diluted by other parties that the control is almost as completely alienated from them as in the case where they have no ownership.
That's interesting to me, because a situation where the workers whose labor was applied to the means of production retain complete control seems like private property to me.
A situation where the control of property is held by an agent of the commons doesn't seem private precisely because the commons includes people that have no ownership from applied utility. Essentially, it's as if no-one's labor has been applied at all and in those cases the resources belong to the public.
> That's interesting to me, because a situation where the workers whose labor was applied to the means of production retain complete control seems like private property to me.
How? Within the socialist personal/social/private typology, not the capitalist public/private typology? The two are completely unrelated systems of categorization, which unfortunately share a name (but not the meaning denoted by the name.)
Yes, because they are using a public/private dichotomy which makes a lot of sense distinguishing kinds of ownership within capitalism, but has nothing to do with the socialist use of the term, where “private property” is a central feature of capitalism, and it's alternative (when it concerns the means of production) is not something which exists in “pure” capitalism.
> because all citizens are allowed to have a say in the management of the property, not just some of them
And this is exactly why many schools of socialist thought see centralized state control, even in a democratic state, as generally private property; the particular workers whose labor is applied to the means of production have their control so diluted by other parties that the control is almost as completely alienated from them as in the case where they have no ownership.