It follows from a commonsense understanding of neoliberalism that state ownership of property would be inefficient, but it is also true from within neoliberal thought that if you privatize too much or incorrectly, knowledge could also be misallocated, blocked, or left stagnant. MPS president and Bank of Sweden Prize winner James M. Buchanan suggested that expansion of patents on basic scientific research, for example, could lead to a “tragedy of the anti-commons”—where too many competing property claims impeded efficiency and innovation. As scholars point out, there is the danger, even from a utility-maximizing perspective, of “too much property.”

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 175