Posted by Duncan on September 12, 2013 at 03:44:38 user Duncan.
In Reply to: Re: Water and Empire: Examination Paper posted by Peter Hyland on September 12, 2013 at 00:35:16:
I wasn't entirely convinced of the legal status of the Golden Gulch, let alone the pearls, although I'm pleased AR's world had a less proprietorial political culture than the real world (for the most part at least; the North Pole belonged to somebody of course).
Funnily enough, ownership plays a fairly important part in several SA stories, but it's always far from a straightforward question of private property (sorry if this is straying into the realms of a Marxist answer - deduct the points away, by all means!!)
The discussions about who Wild Cat Island "belongs to" has little to do with who might literally have owned it (if anybody); property rights are a little more straightforward in Great Northern, but there is a general "right to roam" atmosphere in the books - they rarely use paths or rights of way, but also seldom encounter walls or fences. Did Swallowdale belong to the Swainsons? Or somebody else? What about Horeshoe Cove? Only very rarely does private property emerge as an issue (e.g. the private mooring during the night sailing in SA). It was even okay to go wandering around a boatyard at night, if for the purpose of tooth extraction rather than shackle theft!!