The core Georgist principle

The core Georgist principle is the equal right to use Nature (or Land, which therefore includes land). This is sometimes referred to as “common property.” From this principle, it follows that the economic rent of Land (matter, energy, space - anything natural) is for the benefit of all. This is apart from Labor (man made entropy changes to Nature). Labor is therefore what's true property.

With that laid out, we can see what is justly private and justly common. Crops don’t just grow. They involve labor (entropy changes). What natural is in them are in a configuration in space and time because of the laborer’s labor (entropy changes). Crops get to the marketplace because of labor (entropy changes). The things of Nature in the crop are merely borrowed but there is justly privately owned labor mixed in it. Usually for convenience we just say the crop is privately owned because the borrowed Nature has almost no economic rent - or as Locke puts it, there is enough and as good (of the matter, energy, space used) for others.

Certain aspects of Nature however generate economic rent. Consider the land the crop was raised in. If it was land where there are no developments, the market rent of comparable empty land may be zero. That is, someone who wants to build a house or grow crops can find land freely. This is not the case in highly developed areas where there may be only a few empty lots available. The market rent of land (in its natural state or raw) is therefore what a user owes everyone else for using the land. It is the value that he enjoys for himself to use and is denying others while he is using it.