ABSTRACT
Informal property rights have been created by surfers in California. There are certain areas known as “surf breaks,” which are locations where the waves create unusually good opportunities for surfing. In locations where the surfing is particularly good, “locals”, that is persons who surf regularly in that area, in effect claim territorial rights and discourage nonlocals from surfing there. Hostility toward nonlocals may take the form of aggressive maneuvers on the waves, verbal abuse, threats or even physical confrontation. In a study of the California Gold Rush, John Umbeck has shown how a society can create an efficient system of property rights when no formal body of law is applicable. Three different types of contracts were made between the landowners and tenant farmers: the fixed-rent contract, the wage contract, and the sharecropping contract, under which the landowner received a specified proportion of the crop grown by the tenant.
