[dalke]

Consider the statement "the government owns all bottles of vodka, but it allows you to control it within certain limits"?

Is that statement invalid? If so, how?

I believe your thesis, and in my words, is that in Norway "the government owns all land, but it allows people to control parcels of land within certain limits."

I have a hard time coming up with a good definition which says the first is incorrect but the second is correct.

[lisper]

The statement is not invalid, it just doesn't fit my intuition of what ownership means.

[dalke]

One of the conjectures, regarding the freedom to roam in Norway, Sweden, etc., is based on the observation that these lands never had serfdom. It may be that your intuition is based on feudal principles, echoing a feudal lord's objection to the monarch's control.

While an enticing conjecture, I suspect the relative population sparsity of those countries, where property damages of the right to roam are within the capacity of the land to handle, is a greater reason.

Examples involving consumable or personal goods, like a car or bottle of vodka, don't have the same capacity.

As a related example, in Minnesota and likely elsewhere, boaters may use the lake surface even though the lake bottom is jointly owned by all of the landowners surrounding the lake. (See http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/publications/waters/Pardon_Me_M... .)