In reply to James Westlock.

My feeling is that we're starting from such different places that a discussion may be impossible here. However I would make the point that the Royal Society enquiry is focussed on the question of what to do with the outputs of publicly funded research. It does not cover the issue of whether there should be publicly funded research but is asking the question, given that we have this, how do we ensure the most possible benefits and reach of its outputs
My view is (fairly obviously) completely opposed to yours. I believe that there are public goods and that these should be funded by the public where the market fails, which it frequently (but by no means always) does. Politics then fundamentally resolves to a question of where the market fails and where it succeeds. Those are issues on which people can have legitimate disagreements.
Your fundamental assumption is that property is a foundational ethical principle (I'm guessing a la Hegel HT @kubke). I could just as easily argue that all property is theft from our common inheritance. Taxation is simply the re-appropriation of that stolen commons back to the community. But I wouldn't want to base a whole philosophy on that because it is just as arbitrary as your starting point. I'm a pragmatist and utilitarian myself. I just want to do things as well as we can given the situation and tools we have at the moment.