[bhb916]

"Beaches and rivers belong to all of us."

This seems like an arbitrary distinction. What makes you think this and not something like "all geographic features belong to all of us"? What makes beaches and rivers so special that rights suddenly don't apply?

[groby_b]

What makes you think this shouldn't extend to all geographic features? Why do we have property rights to land?

Owning land merely means being the last in a line of people who enriched themselves on the backs of others by taking common property and depriving everybody else.

[riantogo]

I'm curious to know what alternate, practical solutions there might be. The current system mostly work. Are you proposing no one can own land and hence no one can build exclusive homes/establishments? Anyone is free to build anywhere and pray no one else wants to move in at will? How will such a system work?

[madhadron]

The place to start looking is Journal of the Commons. Communal ownership with limited privileges of individual use have been a regular feature of mankind's societies for a long, long time.

[satyrnein]

The Georgist or geolibertarian positions on this center around a Land Value Tax, sometimes believed to be the only necessary tax. Someone does own the land, but is taxed at a rate that captures the entire value of the (unimproved) land, so in some ways it's more akin to rent, which neutralizes some of the historic advantages certain groups enjoyed.

This tax is essentially paid to the public to compensate them for being excluded from the land. The tax moves up as the value of the land increases, so idle landowners do not capture the value themselves, and may be forced to sell to people who will put it to more productive use.

That's just scratching the surface, though!

[19793378]

The solution is to ban development in large stretches of North America, tear down the fences, and return the land to an open ecological preserve, like it was before colonial settlement in the 19th century. New England underwent something like this after farms started being abandoned in the middle of the 19th century.

[mulmen]

Doesn't the California state constitution make this distinction? At least for beaches?

Rivers are more complicated than other geographic features because what you do upstream can affect me downstream so it makes sense to have some more rules around them, or even treat them as public.

[beerandt]

Also, waterways and their adjacent lands are historically open to the public as a means of transportation, not for recreation or some other community notion of sharing pretty spaces.

[thesmok]

"Historically" doesn't sound like a good argument for future proof solution of this problem. In Ukraine, it is illegal to block access to any coastal line, sea, river or lake, even if it's private property. You can put up a fence 25 to 100m inland from the lake or river (depends on the size of water body) or 2km from the sea coast, but beaches are for everyone.

[beerandt]

Historically is a legal argument based on common law precedent, not a philosophical argument.

At some point over a thousand years ago, some judge decided it was in the public's best interest that ships be allowed to beach themselves on the nearest toshore/bank without fear of consequence.

(Which is why the high tide line makes sense, as far as where to draw the line.)

They didn't want captains to hesitate if a boat was in distress.

Similarly, sailors getting off a distressed ship shouldn't fear consequences leaving a beached ship, and walking along the coast to the next port.

It's the same logic as a broken down car's driver being allowed to walk down the shoulder of the interstate highway to get to the next exit for help.

This right of passage came about due to interest of public safety; it had nothing to do with public "ownership" of the shoreline, especially for the purposes of enjoyment or recreation.

Now, you could argue it should be the public's right to enjoy all beaches recreationally, but that would require a separate political (as opposed to judicial) process, and would/should be considered a public taking (expropriation), where the land owner has a right to compensation at Fair Market Value, plus expenses.

But that's not what anyone here is arguing for.

[Jamwinner]

Water access is particularly valuable compared to other natural features. Equating access to a river and a mountain peak is perhaps unintentional, but not useful here. Transport, use of water, even bathing and recreation are all common and valid uses, that belong to the people, and not to any entity who may seek to monopolize it.