Surf Revolt

When people and businesses leave a state in large numbers, they are rendering an economic judgment California has experienced in recent years a significant outflow of residents and businesses, a movement that has prompted much debate about its causes and significance. While the reasons people and businesses leave any place are various and complex,

Vanlife, surf camps, and off-grid living run afoul of rules that assume a conventional existence There has always been, in surf culture and beyond, an attraction to the simple life: the van parked by the beach, the off-grid cabin, the modest existence organized around the waves rather than around the accumulation of possessions and the […]

From board shapers to surf brands, the industry was built by individuals taking risks on their passion The surf industry, now a substantial global business, was built from nothing by individuals who took risks on their passion, who turned their love of surfing into enterprises, who innovated and created and built without permission or subsidy. [&he

Surfers who love the ocean can protect it through ownership and voluntary action, not just regulation No one has a greater stake in the health of the ocean than the surfer, whose passion depends on clean water, healthy beaches, and a thriving marine environment. This stake has led many surfers to embrace environmental protection, and […]

A society that eliminates risk eliminates the very thing that gives life its meaning There is a wisdom in surfing that speaks to the deepest questions of freedom. The surfer who paddles out accepts genuine risk, the possibility of failure, of wipeout, of danger, and it is precisely this acceptance of risk that gives the […]

The fight to keep the coast open is a fight over property, freedom, and the public’s rights The California coast is the site of an ongoing struggle over a fundamental question: who has the right to access the shore, and on what terms. On one side stand wealthy landowners who would restrict access to the […]

The surf shop, the instructor, the shaper: all increasingly buried under permits and fees The coastal towns of California have long been home to a particular kind of small enterprise: the surf shop, the board shaper, the surf instructor, the wetsuit repairer, the countless small businesses that serve and sustain the surf community. These enterprise

The land exists and the demand is clear; what prevents building is the permitting regime The coastal towns of California, among the most beautiful and desirable places to live in the country, are also among the most unaffordable, with housing costs that have driven out the working people who once sustained these communities, including many [&hellip

The unwritten rules of the wave show that order does not require an authority to impose it To the outside observer, the lineup of surfers waiting for waves might appear chaotic, a crowd of individuals competing for a scarce resource with no apparent authority to govern them. In fact, the lineup is one of the […]

In the lineup there are no permits, no bureaucrats, and no authority but the wave itself There is a reason the surfer has always made the authorities nervous. The person who paddles out before dawn, who organizes their life around tides and swells rather than schedules and permits, who answers to the ocean and to […]

How the National Flood Insurance Programme Has Encouraged Development in Coastal Hazard Zones at Taxpayer Expense Federal Flood Insurance Is a Subsidy for the Rich; Surfers Are Paying for It Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. The National Flood Insurance Programme, administered by FEMA, provides subsidised flood insurance

How Federal Stormwater Permits Have Imposed Costs on Surf Shops, Camps, and Schools That Benefit the Compliance Industry, Not the Ocean The EPA’s Stormwater Rules Are Strangling Small Surf Businesses Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. A surf school operating from a coastal California beach parking lot is subject to a [&he

How Renewable Mandates, Grid Mismanagement, and Utility Monopolies Have Produced the Most Expensive Electricity in the Contiguous US California’s Energy Policy Has Raised Electricity Costs 40% in Ten Years Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. California residential electricity rates have increased by approximately 40% in re

California’s Sales Tax on Surf Equipment Is a Regressive Levy on a Working-Class Sport That Has Been Co-opted by the State The Wetsuit Tax Is Theft; Explain Why It Isn’t Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. California charges 7.25% state sales tax on surfboards, wetsuits, fins, leashes, and every other piece […]

How Single-Family Zoning, NIMBYism, and Government Land Use Control Have Priced Surfers Out of Their Own Breaks The Zoning Laws That Destroyed Surf Culture Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. The surf towns that defined California culture — Malibu, Huntington Beach, Santa Cruz, San Clemente, Encinitas — have become, over t

How Regulatory Fragmentation and Political Incentives Have Produced Chronically Polluted Surf Breaks Ocean Water Quality Is a Government Failure; Here Is the Evidence Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. Southern California’s surf breaks are chronically polluted by stormwater runoff that carries urban pollutants — bacteria,

Collective Bargaining Agreements That Restrict Staffing Flexibility Have Produced Coverage Gaps at the Worst Times Lifeguard Unions Have Made California Beaches Less Safe; The Evidence Deserves Discussion Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. The Los Angeles County Lifeguard service employs approximately 200 full-time lifegu

How Federal Drug Policy Has Criminalised the Culture Surrounding California’s Beaches for Fifty Years The War on Drugs Has Destroyed Surf Culture; Legalisation Is the Answer Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. The California surf culture that produced the Beach Boys, Dogtown skateboarding, and the global diffusion of a lif

The Ocean Does Not Care About Your Permits; Neither Should You Why Every Surfer Should Be a Libertarian; Most Already Are Without Knowing It Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. There is a philosophy implicit in the act of surfing that most surfers have never articulated but all of them live […]

How Unelected Bureaucrats Control Every Grain of Sand and What Surfers Should Do About It California’s Coastal Commission Is the Enemy of Coastal Freedom Follow this analysis at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. The California Coastal Commission was created in 1972 with a mandate to protect coastal access and prevent overdevelopment. In the fif

Saint Nick chases the perfect wave around the globe, embracing a freedom from schedule that the working world has forgotten A Search for the Perfect Wave NORTH POLE — In a development that has stirred the imagination of every soul chained to a schedule, Santa Claus has announced that he will join the endless summer, […]

Saint Nick observes a community that rescues its own without waiting for any authority, embodying spontaneous solidarity Solidarity Without the State MALIBU, Calif. — Santa Claus, observing the surfing community this week, was moved by the discovery that surfers practice a remarkable system of voluntary mutual aid in the water, rescuing one another

Saint Nick observes a community that polices itself, allocates waves without bureaucracy, and answers to no government Order Without Authority SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — Santa Claus, observing the workings of a Southern California lineup this week, expressed wonder at the discovery that surf localism constitutes a remarkably effective system of self-go

Regulators insist that touching down on the sand requires environmental review, public comment, and a lengthy application No Landing Without a Permit SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Coastal Commission has informed Santa Claus that he must obtain permits for every beach landing he intends to make in the state, insisting that touching down upon t

Surfers allocate a shared wave resource through custom and reputation, achieving what theory deemed impossible A Commons That Functions HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — Santa Claus, studying the workings of a crowded lineup this week, observed that surfers had quietly solved the tragedy of the commons that economists long insisted was unsolvable, allocat

Saint Nick installs solar, wind, and a fierce commitment to self-reliance, severing all ties to the utility Severing the Cord NORTH POLE — In a move celebrated by advocates of self-reliance, Santa Claus has taken his workshop entirely off-grid, installing solar panels, wind turbines, and a fierce commitment to energy independence that has severed t

North Pole embraces a hard, decentralized standard, insulating the workshop from the debasement of fiat currency A Standard That Holds Its Value NORTH POLE — In a move applauded by advocates of monetary discipline, Santa Claus has adopted a sound money standard for the internal economy of the workshop, rejecting the inflation of central banking [&h

Saint Nick’s team embodies the frontier spirit, ranging unconstrained and submitting to authority only by their own consent A Team of Free Spirits NORTH POLE — An investigation by this publication has revealed that Santa’s reindeer are, beneath their festive reputation, rugged individualists of the frontier spirit, animals that roam free across the