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“…private ownership of resources may not be beneficial. Correct?”
Yes, correct. Private ownership of nature-given resources enables one of the two fundamental monopolies to siphon off all surplus wealth into private preserves.
The great failure of socialists was that they were not interested in distinguishing between owning nature and owning the products of human effort. The blanket ideology that “property is theft” was a very harmful oversimplification. “Some property is theft” would have sufficed as a guide to the socialists' version of a just world.
In fact, to condemn equally the capitalist's ownership of a factory, for example, and the landlord's claim of ownership over the plot of land under the factory, was a big strategic as well as legal mistake. This united two “enemies” into one strong force against labour.
State ownership of natural resources is not a safe solution either since present day governments are not much more accountable than private corporations. The best pattern is being followed by the policy in Alaska where a substantial part of the oil revenue is distributed as public dividend. But the policy needs to be extended to all natural resources, especially the rent of urban land.
I am not convinced that mere collective ownership would be safe enough since collectives can be manipulated by ambitious and cunning minorities. Maybe some collaborative investigation of these things should be undertaken. There is plenty of literature available if we know where to look (but not much of relevance is in mainstream economics as far as I am aware).
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