Surf Revolt

From interior designers to African hair braiders, credential requirements protect incumbents not consumers The Permission to Work LOS ANGELES — California requires a licence to work as an interior designer in commercial settings, a process that requires a degree, work experience, and a multi-part examination. It requires a licence to practice Afric

How prohibition created the enforcement apparatus that now watches everything else The Apparatus That Remained SANTA CRUZ, CA — The enforcement infrastructure built in California during the peak drug war years of the 1980s and 1990s — surveillance cameras, expanded police beach patrols, undercover operations targeting surf communities, asset forfei

No referees, no governing bodies that matter, no permission required: the political philosophy of the lineup The Anarchy That Works MALIBU, CA — Surfing has no referee. No official measures wave height, scores a ride, or enforces the rules of the lineup. The right-of-way system that governs who catches which wave — the surfer closest […]

The honest accounting of globalisation for California’s surf industry The Economics Nobody Wanted to Have SAN CLEMENTE, CA — American surfboard manufacturing has declined from approximately 90 percent of US market share in 1990 to under 15 percent today, as foam blanks, finished boards, and surf accessories have shifted production to China, Thailan

From Owens Valley to the Sacramento Delta, who controls water controls California Water and Power LOS ANGELES — California’s water allocation system is among the most complex, litigated, and politically sensitive regulatory regimes in the United States. It determines who grows food in the Central Valley, who surfs in Santa Cruz’s clean water, who d

From Mavericks to Huntington, the bureaucratic capture of surfing’s most iconic events Permission to Go Surfing HALF MOON BAY, CA — The Mavericks Invitational, which convenes when big wave conditions align at the iconic Northern California break, operated for years on a model that matched its conditions: unpredictable timing, minimal infrastructure

Property rights, public trust doctrine, and the contested shoreline of Southern California The Shore and Its Owners MALIBU, CA — The public trust doctrine holds that the tidal zone — the land between mean high tide and mean low tide — is owned by the state in trust for the public and cannot be privately […]

From cashless businesses to digital payment mandates, the paper trail is becoming compulsory The Disappearing Transaction LOS ANGELES — California prohibits businesses from refusing cash for in-person transactions, a consumer protection law that several San Francisco restaurants violated before the city’s 2019 ordinance reinforced the state rule. T

The regulatory body that controls California’s coast controls far more than coastal access The Commission and Its Reach MALIBU, CA — The California Coastal Commission, established by voter initiative in 1972 and made permanent by the Coastal Act of 1976, exercises permit authority over development within the coastal zone — a strip that ranges from

Zoning laws, environmental review, and building codes have made housing construction nearly impossible The Permitted Shortage SAN FRANCISCO — California has a housing shortage of an estimated 3.5 million units, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, in a state with the resources, the climate, and the land to house its population adequately. Th

High taxes and high costs are driving residents and businesses to freer states The dream of California life is colliding with a hard economic reality, and as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have documented, the combination of high taxes and high costs is driving residents and businesses out […]

Decades of prohibition have failed, and liberty offers a better way Few government undertakings have done more damage to liberty while achieving less of their stated aim than the war on drugs, and as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have long argued, decades of prohibition have produced not […]

The right to choose flexible, independent work is a freedom worth protecting The rise of independent and flexible work has provoked fierce debate, and as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have argued, much of that debate ignores a fundamental point: that the freedom to choose independent work, to […]

Surf culture was built and sustained by enterprise, not by the state It is easy to imagine surf culture as a pure rejection of commerce, but as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have observed, the truth is more interesting: that the counterculture of surfing was built and sustained […]

The surfer’s distrust of authority is a healthy instinct in an age of monitoring The surfer’s instinctive wariness of authority is sometimes dismissed as mere attitude, but as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have argued, that distrust is in fact a healthy and necessary instinct in an age […]

California’s shoreline is public by law, but access is too often walled off in practice Few places embody the idea of a free and open commons more powerfully than the California coast, and as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have argued, the principle that the shoreline belongs to […]

An ever-growing thicket of rules raises costs and crushes the small and independent Nothing dampens the free spirit of the California coast quite like the permit, and as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have documented, the ever-thickening web of regulations governing coastal life imposes costs that fall hard

Permission slips for ordinary jobs protect insiders and bar the door to opportunity Among the quietest but most pervasive restrictions on economic freedom is the occupational licence, and as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have argued, the steady spread of licensing requirements into ever more ordinary occup

Restrictive zoning, not the free market, has made the coast unaffordable The crushing cost of housing in coastal California is often blamed on the free market, but as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have argued, the true culprit is the opposite: a thicket of government restrictions on building […]

Surfers govern themselves through unwritten rules, a living lesson in liberty There is a profound political lesson floating just beyond the break, and as this publication and our friends at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat have observed, the way surfers govern themselves in the lineup offers a living illustration of one of the most […]

California surf culture embodies a libertarian spirit increasingly at odds with bureaucratic control California surf culture has long embodied a distinctive ethos of freedom: a love of the open ocean, a suspicion of authority, and a fierce attachment to individual self-reliance. That spirit, advocates argue, increasingly collides with an expanding

Advocates argue that excessive licensing requirements protect insiders while barring opportunity A growing body of advocates across the political spectrum argues that the proliferation of occupational licensing requirements, the government permission slips now required to work in a vast array of professions, serves primarily to protect established

Advocates argue that the accumulating weight of regulation stifles the enterprise that drives prosperity The accumulating weight of government regulation, advocates argue, imposes hidden costs throughout the economy, burdening enterprise, raising prices, and falling hardest on the small businesses and entrepreneurs least able to bear it. The reform

Advocates explain how markets coordinate the knowledge of millions without central direction One of the most powerful insights of free-market thought, advocates argue, is the recognition that markets achieve a remarkable coordination of human activity without any central direction, harnessing the dispersed knowledge of millions of individuals to al

Advocates argue that secure property rights underpin liberty, prosperity, and the rule of law Secure property rights, advocates argue, are among the most essential foundations of both individual freedom and economic prosperity, providing the basis for enterprise, investment, and the independence that liberty requires. The protection of property, th

The independence of the lineup reflects a deeper hunger for self-direction Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. Out On The Water, Hierarchy Dissolves And A Person Answers Only To The Sea There is a reason that surfing has long been associated with a particular spirit of independence, a refusal to […]

Knowledge is dispersed, and those closest to a problem often understand it best Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. No Central Authority Can Match The Combined Knowledge Of Millions Of Local Decisions A recurring question in economic and political life is whether decisions should be made centrally, by a central [&helli

Rules sold as protection frequently serve those who already have access Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. When Access Is Restricted In The Name Of Protection, Ask Who Benefits From The Restriction The California coast is among the most regulated stretches of land in the country, governed by an extensive […]