The important part is "private owner".
Most land is owned by corporations, that's more to worry about.
To my mind, corporations are only good if they 1. provide value 2. capture some fraction of that value, because you have a win-win situation on your hands.
This applies well to production of products, which is obviously not zero-sum. Land is, however, so whenever a corporation is making a profit off of land ownership, it means an individual (or government) is not.
I basically agree about pure land ownership though. Obviously this is one of the main leftist critiques of capitalist societies. I'm not sure if state ownership is any better on net though (in general, I'm fine with national parks or whatever), mostly for logistical reasons. There's a lot of external factors to consider with land too. You don't want people to do whatever and poison said land via poor management or irresponsible resource extraction.
The alternative is probably a future where all land is owned by corporations and all people are just renting, which to me sounds like a recipe for disaster.
People will always exist. Corporations do not need to. I only believe corporations / companies should exist in situations where 1. they are providing value 2. capturing a portion of that value. Basically any corporation that is managing to do 2 without first doing 1 (or is managing to capture more value in step 2 than they are creating in step 1) is a business that should not exist.
As such, companies should not exist in spaces where they are not providing added value, and it is impossible for them to do so as a land-owner, because the owner is not providing any value, the land was always there. They didn't create it. Yes, Bob Gentry is not providing any value either, but again people will always exist, companies should not unless they serve a distinct purpose from what a person can.
But on top of that I do actually think the incentives are different. Companies and people are fundamentally different beasts. For starters, companies are effectively amoral.
source: I grew up in, and live in Nebraska. Family ranch was registered as an LLC, but we were just a small family operation, and by this point nonexistent (parents sold out and retired).
The initial purchase of the land by the corporation wasn't zero sum, however. The previous landowner and the corporation both gained subjective utility from the transaction (otherwise they wouldn't have engaged in it), so the transaction itself was positive sum.
...insulate management and shareholders from losses and litigation.
Don't get me wrong, we need to be able to pierce the corporate veil a lot easier in the US, but the setup isn't born from pure cynicism.
https://thinkingagriculture.io/what-agriculture-has-and-does...
Corporate farming COULD be more efficient, but in common practice it is not.
I'm open to different definitions of efficiency, but this isn't really in question. HOW they are getting that efficiency (more fertilizer, etc.) we can agree/disagree. But they are more efficient in the most basic sense possible [more production, less land].
Note that there are other ways to organize people to farm efficiently, like worker cooperatives.
"our researchers identified dozens of different entities that own the Gateses’ assets"
It doesn't seem to specify how much Bill and Melinda privately own, but it seems like the majority is owned by organizations.
It includes individuals, privately-held & publically-traded corporations, and most trusts or other legal entities that aren't government controlled.
There might be different tax polices and exemptions carved out for the different entities, but the legal structure of ownership is the same.
This does not include anything federal, military, state, or local (including tribal) government, or is otherwise a special case, like some conservation non-profits, or things like public land trusts.
But if any part the government wants to expropriate or otherwise seize privately held land, it has to go through the same process no matter what type of legal entity.
https://sos.nd.gov/business/business-services/business-struc...