Dave Pollard has an interesting little piece about differences in access to riparian and seashore land. He’s asking whether there is some major difference between US and Canadian law on the subject. I’m not sure whether there is, as both sets of land law would be based on the old English law, which essentially says that riverbanks and lakesides belong to the landowner, while the area below the high tide line belongs to the Crown ( obviously either the State or the Feds in the US ).
He then goes on to argue that there should be full public access to such areas, with private landowners being unable to restrict access. I may or may not agree with him, but what really struck me was that he used Hardin’s ” Tragedy of the Commons ” argument to buttress this view. Now Hardin’s insight is indeed appropriate to the case at hand. Unfortunately, that insight completely demolishes Dave’s view. The Tragedy is what happens to land with commons style access when the demand for such access goes over the natural carrying capacity. At this point some form of management must be imposed : it can be either social ( socialist ) or private management. It can be the community or an individual landowner : Hardin does not specify which , in fact later in his work states that either will work, dependent upon the other factors in the case. But he is adamant that in order to avoid the Tragedy, restrictions on access there must be.
So if you were in fact advocating, as Dave does, open and unrestricted access to land, would you mention Hardin, the person who demolishes your case, at all ?
I wonder whether Dave has actually read what Hardin says ?