Truth and Liberty
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Critique of Flow
A Free Market Critique of "Flow: For Love Of Water"
View the trailer for this documentary here:
Summary
Contents
- Introduction
- Who owns water?
- The Water Delivery Industry
- Pollution – a failure of the government justice system
- Private charities provide decentralized solutions
- World Bank corporatism - denationalizing water industries
- Water shortages?
- Bottled water – greed and stupidity, or convenience?
- Right to water?
- Conclusion
Introduction
Flow is a well-made, thought-provoking documentary highlighting various issues that need urgent attention. Among them:
In this essay, I will show that in all these cases, the root of the problem lies with government. I will show that nationalizing water systems (left-wing socialism) and handing control over to large corporations (right-wing socialism) are both false solutions. The most economical, and the only ethical solution, is to be found in free markets, where property rights and the Rule of Law are respected.
Who owns water?
At several points during the film, the question of who owns water is raised. This question is equivalent to asking ‘who owns shoes?’ Whole classes of objects cannot be owned – only specific items. Who owns water depends on what water is being discussed.
The film supports the view that water cannot and should not be owned by anyone; that it should be shared for the common good. It makes comparisons between water and air, or sunlight. Since no one can buy and sell air or sunlight, the film argues that no one can or should be able to buy and sell water.
However there is an important distinction between water on one hand and air and sunlight on the other. In most circumstances, water is scarce, while air and sunlight are abundant. These are technical definitions. Something is abundant is if it available immediately, on demand, with no effort. Abundant goods do not have to be allocated, shared or economized. One person using air or sunlight in most circumstances does not mean that another person has less air or sunlight. Air is a scarce resource for astronauts, deep-sea divers and firefighters, so in these circumstances air is indeed bought and sold. Water on the other hand is normally scarce, except perhaps while one is swimming in drinking water.
Thus, it is legitimate that water can be owned, bought and sold, as it is a scarce resource, which needs to be harvested, purified and transported to where it is in demand.
In determining who owns a specific body of water, we turn to the general theory of property rights. Property can be justly acquired through voluntary exchange, a gift, or through original approbation (‘homesteading’). All property has ultimately come from the Earth, so all property must at some point have been homesteaded. This is when the natural resource was first used in human action. The first user is the homesteader and therefore the first owner of the resource.
Water is provided by nature in the form of rain. If a person works out a way of catching and collecting the rain, that water becomes owned by him. He can consume it, save it, sell it or give it away as he pleases. No one has the right to tell him what to do with this water, because he owns it, by virtue of the fact that he homesteaded the rain.
If a stream runs through my garden, I can be said to own that part of the stream, and can therefore do what I wish with it. I can homestead the water in the stream, or fish in it, or pollute it, as long as my actions do not aggress against another person’s property (including people that own the stream further down).
If a poor community of individuals uses a river for clean water, then those individuals own that part of the river. If that part of the river becomes polluted or dries up because of industrial activity further up the river, then the owners have a right to retribution from the harvester or polluter, because they have aggressed against their property. It is analogous to a neighbor dumping his household waste on your lawn – it is an invasion of property rights.
The ethical answer to the question of who owns water is whoever homesteads it or acquires it through a gift or voluntary exchange.
The theory of property rights is in accordance with natural law. No government needs to exist to enforce or define natural property rights. This is in stark contrast to the position taken by the film – which is that water should not be owned but should be ‘free for all’ and available for the ‘common good’? This requires the breaking of natural law, and thus requires a government to enforce it. This is unavoidable because of the nature of water as a scarce good – it must be allocated somehow. Declaring water a ‘common good’ is really saying that water is owned by the government.
This is the root of the problem raised in the film – that we have a society with a government declaring itself the owner of all water, and deciding who can use it, instead of a society respecting private property rights.
The Water Delivery Industry
Since water is not abundant, somebody must harvest, purify and transport the water to where it is needed. If the government declares water a common good, then the free market is severely hampered. The free market requires that property rights are respected. We cannot have a free market water industry and maintain the view of water as a common good.
With water declared a common good, water delivery could still be done by private business or by nationalized water industries. While private business should always be preferable to nationalized industry, when government first assumes ownership of all water, private business can become even worse than nationalized industries. It is a false choice.
1. Nationalized Water and Nationalized Water Delivery Industry
The problems with nationalized water systems are well-known, since they are the same problems that face any nationalized industry as opposed to free markets. Here, instead of consumers or charities paying for water delivery services, money is simply be taxed (stolen) from the general population, and then water provided ‘for free’. As with any government-run industry, the lack of profit-loss incentives always lead to bad services and products, delivered inefficiently and with high costs and a large amount of waste. There is no way of calculating where there is highest demand, no incentive for innovation, and personal connections and influencing skills are rewarded more than high personal productivity. Certain areas and politically-connected groups will be favored, corruption will become widespread, and a black-market will arise.
2. Nationalized Water and Private Unregulated Water Delivery Industry
Without free market water ownership, private water delivery systems will solve some of these problems, but it will create a serious problem that might be more easily avoided in a nationalized system: environmental destruction through over-harvesting and pollution.
If water systems are privatized, and the government declared all water freely available for the use of anyone, there would be nothing stopping an entire lake being harvested. Indeed, the most successful private harvesters would be those who can pump the fastest and get the water before someone else does. Those who would suffer from the loss of the lake would have no recourse because the water was not considered their property.
If water is considered free for all, then no one has the right to sue anybody else for polluting the water supply. One person has as much right to pollute as another, because ‘everyone has equal rights to the water’.
3. Nationalized Water and Private Regulated Water Delivery Industry
In an attempt to solve the problems of over-harvesting and pollution, the government passes regulations in the form of licenses, permits – setting limits on how much people are allowed to harvest and to pollute.
Government regulations cartelize industries, protecting favored corporations from competition. Virtually all major corporations welcome regulations because the use of government power means they do not have to continually deliver the best possible services to consumers to make big profits. And by carefully choosing regulations, government can control who is allowed in the cartel. This way, government can control industries without explicit nationalization. As ever with governments, there is a highly likelihood of corruption.
When private businesses and governments work together in this way, it is right-wing socialism (known as conservativism or in its more socialist forms, corporatism or fascism). Free market rhetoric (terms like ‘privatization’, ‘open market’, ‘commoditization’, etc) is employed, but government regulations, and the use of government’s law-breaking powers, reveal that it is really corporatism that is being promoted.
Behind the free market veil of ‘denationalized’ or ‘privatized’ water delivery systems, lies corporatism. The film shows clearly that the corporations being presented as evil are deeply entwined with the government – through organizations like the World Water Council.
A regulated private water industry will also have the effect of transferring responsibility for ensuring water is safe to drink from consumers to the government. People assume that water is safe, because they assume it is being regulated. In fact, as the film points out, while our water industries are heavily regulated (the nature of corporatism), those regulations are not effectively protecting consumers. This is not what the regulations are designed to do.
4. Free Market Water and Free Market Water Delivery Systems
Whether we have private business running the water delivery systems or governments directly, we will not have the best system – a free market – until water is itself ‘denationalized’ and natural property rights respected.
On the free market, water services would be paid for by consumers or by charities to businesses whose motive for profit will lead them to make best possible use of resources to efficiently provide good quality product and service to the maximum number of people, as cheaply as possible. Only by continually providing the best possible service will the business continue making profits. No regulations or permits to harvest water mean that there will be free competition and constant improvements.
The environmental problems that are caused by government ownership of water disappear when natural property rights are respected. If water is being polluted, the owners of the polluted water can sue the polluter, and this will ensure pollution is minimized. If water in a lake is being over-harvested, those who suffer can sue the culprit, and this will lead to preservation of natural resources. With a given body of water owned by individuals, there will be incentive to preserve it for future use, and to make best possible use of it.
The free market also has a built-in mechanism for adapting to different levels of supply. The price system simply adjusts, so that water is used in fewer marginal (least important) activities, and hence preserved. If a natural resource is running low, its price will rise – then fewer people will use it, it will be recycled more, there will be efforts to find more of it, and substitutes and alternative technologies will develop.
Responsibility for ensuring water is safe lies with consumers rather than with the government. Free market water companies will subscribe to free market regulators, who will guarantee the quality of water. The free market regulators will be kept in check by consumer watchdogs and no corruption will be tolerated. If a free market regulator does a bad job or is corrupt, it will lose customers and face bankruptcy. The free market will ensure that safe water is provided, much more effectively than government regulation can. This applies to the tap water and bottled water industries.
Summary
All the environmental problems highlighted in the film can be blamed on a lack of respect for natural private property ownership of water, combined with private business running water delivery systems. Nationalized water delivery systems are not the answer. This is a false choice. While environmental disasters may be avoided, nationalization is not the best way of achieving the goal of clean drinking water for all. We need natural private property rights in water to be respected (absence of government) and then have a private, unregulated free market water delivery industry.
Pollution – a failure of the government justice system
As discussed, pollution is an invasion of property rights. Therefore, if a community’s drinking supply becomes polluted, the victims have a right to retribution from the polluter.
Unfortunately, the justice industry is usually monopolized by governments. Justice is a particularly important industry, and monopoly control of courts enables governments to abuse property rights flagrantly. The system is highly inefficient and corrupt, with frequent miscarriages of justice and unfair sentencing.
It is government’s control over the courts that enable it to declare water as a common good, that is, a good controlled by them and not considered anyone’s private property. The government courts favor polluters and give no justice to individuals whose property has been ruined by dam-building, pollution or harvesting.
The goal of ending pollution should be part of a wider goal of eliminating government from the justice and lawmaking industry, and instead having free market courts. Free market courts would efficiently provide justice – their reputation for justice is the reason they have customers. Expensive lawyers hired by polluting corporations could not easily escape the justice of a free market court.
Those who are too poor to pursue legal action themselves may be helped by private charities, or they may sell their claims to compensation at a discounted rate to businesses who will take legal action on their behalf. This way, victims of pollution or over-harvesting will receive a payout immediately and there is no risk of the legal action failing. That risk will be assumed by these businesses, whose profits will be a percentage of the value of the compensation payout.
The film raises the following specific health and environmental issues caused by chemicals in drinking water:
The threat of being sued will lead free market companies to be as clean as possible and to dispose of their waste in the most suitable way.
Private charities provide decentralized solutions
The film admirably draws attention to alternative ways of solving the problem of individuals in third world countries not having access to clean drinking water. They are decentralized solutions, such as water harvesting and conservation techniques, and UV water purification systems. The effectiveness and efficiency of these systems is demonstrated.
The film shows how government aid is used on large projects, such as dams, reservoirs and pipe networks, and this system is ineffective at providing water to poor people in remote areas. Third world governments are often forced to distribute the money to corporations, whose main interest is in centralized water systems.
It is private charity that is enabling the development of these decentralized systems. Private charity has an interest in getting money to the people who need it most, making the most amount of difference in the most efficient way.
This demonstrates that government aid should be replaced with private charity. Private charity is not only more efficient and effective, it is also the only ethical form of charity, and the only form worthy of the name.
With government aid, wealth is seized from taxpayers in richer countries, and allocated for third world charity. It is passed to the World Bank to distribute to whichever it country it decides. It is then given to favored governments, who choose who in their country benefits from it – often large corporations. At each step of the way, there is corruption, and money sliced off the top for the bureaucracy. Since it is stolen money, distributed arbitrarily, this form of government aid can hardly be considered charity. It is simple forced redistribution of wealth.
Private, free-market charities should be allowed to operate without government restriction, and we should no longer allow governments to steal from us to provide ‘aid’ to foreign governments.
With government out of the picture, the free market will quickly establish the most efficient ways of ensuring everyone has clean drinking water. Private charities will choose the best technical methods of providing water – their voluntary donors will insist upon it.
World Bank corporatism – denationalizing water industries
The film spends time on examples of the World Bank forcing nationalized water industries in third world countries to be ‘privatized’. Unfortunately, the film only addresses two alternatives – nationalization or corporatism – ignoring the third and best option, a free society. It describes the mechanism by which corporatism is introduced, giving as examples Bolivia and Natal.
The Bolivian government assumed ownership of water and ran a nationalized water industry until 1999, when it sold part of it to Bechtel, a multinational corporation. Bechtel had illegitimately taken ownership of the water system using government power (when the industry was first nationalized). With government now also protecting them from competition, Bechtel were not obliged to provide the best possible service to consumers at the lowest price, and the result was even more human suffering than existed under the nationalized system. Pollution increased and water was over-harvested. On top of this, charity was not getting to where it was needed, so the poorest suffered most of all.
The film states that the reason the Bolivian government sold the water system was because the World Bank threatened to cut off their Water Development Loans. The dependence of third world governments on the World Bank for loans means that the World Bank has control over them.
James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank and a member of the Bilderberg Group, makes it clear that World Bank is concerned with much more than just lending money. He describes them as a world government:
Basic needs, if they cannot be met by the consumers themselves by producing goods for the market, should be met by private charity.
Without government ownership of water or of the water industry, corporatism could not be introduced.
Water shortages?
The film introduces the theme of water shortages early with several apocalyptic quotes in the introduction:
This does not necessarily mean that a “water shortage crisis” is also a myth. The evidence should be weighed on its own merits.
Half way into the film, it returns to the subject of water shortage. There are no clear explanations of what is supposed to be causing the water shortage. Instead, we are provided with a series of interviewees making various remarks. Many of the remarks are dubious or contain fallacies. Some of them are difficult to interpret because it is not clear what the interviewer meant.
Strangely, at this point in the film, the subject changes to bottled water consumption in the United States. It is implying that, in addition to climate change, the American consumer is also to blame for the water shortage crisis.
The film does not return the subject of global water shortages, leaving the general cause as: greed.
Bottled Water – greed and stupidity, or convenience?
The comment introducing the subject of bottled water in the United States is as follows:
The film then makes the case that bottled water can be less safe than tap water (blaming this issue on lack of government regulation), and actually has no difference in taste. It mocks people that pay for bottled water believing it to taste better than tap water.
It may be true that ‘psychological factors’ may be causing people to incorrectly perceive differences in taste – but what does that matter? All valuation is subjective. People should be free to do what they believe satisfies them most, do not have to explain their reasons, and should not be made to feel guilty.
If the anti-bottled water activists are successful in persuading someone to go back to tap water, then they have saved that person some money, but should not be under the illusion that that in itself is helping to ‘save the Earth’. Instead, they should spend time convincing people to give money to free market charities who will provide decentralized water solutions for poor people. That would make a much bigger difference.
Right to Water?
Towards the end of the film, activists are shown talking about their fight against corporatism:
In fact, there can be no Right to water without contradicting natural property rights. Since water is scarce, for one person to have a Right to water means that another person must go without, or be made to work to provide water for the person declaring it as their Right. A Right to water, just like a Right to education, food, shelter, healthcare, televisions, cars, etc, would be a contradiction of the Right to property and, contained within it, the Right to life and liberty.
The only ethical society is one where all property rights are respected, and this excludes the possibility of a Right to water.
This does not undermine the goal of having everybody in the world with access to clean drinking water. This is easily within reach, but it should be done ethically as well as in the most economical way. It should be the goal of private charities.
Conclusion
The film draws attention to a number of very important issues and the work that is being done in the fight against corporatism. Unfortunately, most activists seem to be advocating a false solution. They are calling for government to control their most important industry. They reject right-wing socialism but embrace left-wing socialism.
While socialism remains, we are unlikely to see everyone in the world with access to clean water. Activists and charities should fight for property rights in water to be respected and for government to get out of the picture entirely – rejecting both corporatism and nationalization.
The water industry is a clear case of the failure of government, and there is great potential for a truly free market to make an enormous difference to the lives of poor people around the world.
View the trailer for this documentary here:
Summary
- The film advocates the view of water being a ‘common good’ and supports nationalization of water industries rather than corporatism. The third choice - liberty, where property rights in water are respected - is not mentioned.
- Corporatism has been disastrous for poor communities and the natural environment, but nationalized water industries are inefficient, ineffective, wasteful and unethical.
- Water pollution and over-harvesting are due to the government-controlled court system not respecting property rights.
- Government aid money is not getting to where it is needed or being used efficiently. Private charities are making a difference where they can.
- All the important issues raised in the film will be solved – and the noble goal of everyone having access to clean water achieved – by respecting natural property rights in water and free markets in justice, charity and water delivery industries.
- There is no clear evidence of a genuine “water shortage crisis”; if water supplies do become low, the free market price system would be able to provide the solution to it, by eliminating marginal uses of water.
Contents
- Introduction
- Who owns water?
- The Water Delivery Industry
- Pollution – a failure of the government justice system
- Private charities provide decentralized solutions
- World Bank corporatism - denationalizing water industries
- Water shortages?
- Bottled water – greed and stupidity, or convenience?
- Right to water?
- Conclusion
Introduction
Flow is a well-made, thought-provoking documentary highlighting various issues that need urgent attention. Among them:
- Waste dumping into rivers and streams, industrial toxins and chemicals used in agriculture are contaminating drinking supplies and the environment.
- Unsafe water is being sold as tap water and as bottled water without being regulated.
- De-nationalization of water systems in third world countries has led to many people suffering by not being able to afford to pay for clean water.
- Centralized water delivery systems, using dams and pipe networks, are not suited to the task of delivering water to remote areas. Decentralized solutions exist, but they are being underutilized.
- The world is urgently running out of clean water and this may lead to water wars or a mass extinction.
- Bottled water is extremely popular and yet is often no healthier than tap water.
- Nestle, Coca-Cola and other companies pumping water are causing rivers and streams to dry up.
In this essay, I will show that in all these cases, the root of the problem lies with government. I will show that nationalizing water systems (left-wing socialism) and handing control over to large corporations (right-wing socialism) are both false solutions. The most economical, and the only ethical solution, is to be found in free markets, where property rights and the Rule of Law are respected.
Who owns water?
At several points during the film, the question of who owns water is raised. This question is equivalent to asking ‘who owns shoes?’ Whole classes of objects cannot be owned – only specific items. Who owns water depends on what water is being discussed.
The film supports the view that water cannot and should not be owned by anyone; that it should be shared for the common good. It makes comparisons between water and air, or sunlight. Since no one can buy and sell air or sunlight, the film argues that no one can or should be able to buy and sell water.
However there is an important distinction between water on one hand and air and sunlight on the other. In most circumstances, water is scarce, while air and sunlight are abundant. These are technical definitions. Something is abundant is if it available immediately, on demand, with no effort. Abundant goods do not have to be allocated, shared or economized. One person using air or sunlight in most circumstances does not mean that another person has less air or sunlight. Air is a scarce resource for astronauts, deep-sea divers and firefighters, so in these circumstances air is indeed bought and sold. Water on the other hand is normally scarce, except perhaps while one is swimming in drinking water.
Thus, it is legitimate that water can be owned, bought and sold, as it is a scarce resource, which needs to be harvested, purified and transported to where it is in demand.
In determining who owns a specific body of water, we turn to the general theory of property rights. Property can be justly acquired through voluntary exchange, a gift, or through original approbation (‘homesteading’). All property has ultimately come from the Earth, so all property must at some point have been homesteaded. This is when the natural resource was first used in human action. The first user is the homesteader and therefore the first owner of the resource.
Water is provided by nature in the form of rain. If a person works out a way of catching and collecting the rain, that water becomes owned by him. He can consume it, save it, sell it or give it away as he pleases. No one has the right to tell him what to do with this water, because he owns it, by virtue of the fact that he homesteaded the rain.
If a stream runs through my garden, I can be said to own that part of the stream, and can therefore do what I wish with it. I can homestead the water in the stream, or fish in it, or pollute it, as long as my actions do not aggress against another person’s property (including people that own the stream further down).
If a poor community of individuals uses a river for clean water, then those individuals own that part of the river. If that part of the river becomes polluted or dries up because of industrial activity further up the river, then the owners have a right to retribution from the harvester or polluter, because they have aggressed against their property. It is analogous to a neighbor dumping his household waste on your lawn – it is an invasion of property rights.
The ethical answer to the question of who owns water is whoever homesteads it or acquires it through a gift or voluntary exchange.
The theory of property rights is in accordance with natural law. No government needs to exist to enforce or define natural property rights. This is in stark contrast to the position taken by the film – which is that water should not be owned but should be ‘free for all’ and available for the ‘common good’? This requires the breaking of natural law, and thus requires a government to enforce it. This is unavoidable because of the nature of water as a scarce good – it must be allocated somehow. Declaring water a ‘common good’ is really saying that water is owned by the government.
This is the root of the problem raised in the film – that we have a society with a government declaring itself the owner of all water, and deciding who can use it, instead of a society respecting private property rights.
The Water Delivery Industry
Since water is not abundant, somebody must harvest, purify and transport the water to where it is needed. If the government declares water a common good, then the free market is severely hampered. The free market requires that property rights are respected. We cannot have a free market water industry and maintain the view of water as a common good.
With water declared a common good, water delivery could still be done by private business or by nationalized water industries. While private business should always be preferable to nationalized industry, when government first assumes ownership of all water, private business can become even worse than nationalized industries. It is a false choice.
1. Nationalized Water and Nationalized Water Delivery Industry
The problems with nationalized water systems are well-known, since they are the same problems that face any nationalized industry as opposed to free markets. Here, instead of consumers or charities paying for water delivery services, money is simply be taxed (stolen) from the general population, and then water provided ‘for free’. As with any government-run industry, the lack of profit-loss incentives always lead to bad services and products, delivered inefficiently and with high costs and a large amount of waste. There is no way of calculating where there is highest demand, no incentive for innovation, and personal connections and influencing skills are rewarded more than high personal productivity. Certain areas and politically-connected groups will be favored, corruption will become widespread, and a black-market will arise.
2. Nationalized Water and Private Unregulated Water Delivery Industry
Without free market water ownership, private water delivery systems will solve some of these problems, but it will create a serious problem that might be more easily avoided in a nationalized system: environmental destruction through over-harvesting and pollution.
If water systems are privatized, and the government declared all water freely available for the use of anyone, there would be nothing stopping an entire lake being harvested. Indeed, the most successful private harvesters would be those who can pump the fastest and get the water before someone else does. Those who would suffer from the loss of the lake would have no recourse because the water was not considered their property.
If water is considered free for all, then no one has the right to sue anybody else for polluting the water supply. One person has as much right to pollute as another, because ‘everyone has equal rights to the water’.
3. Nationalized Water and Private Regulated Water Delivery Industry
In an attempt to solve the problems of over-harvesting and pollution, the government passes regulations in the form of licenses, permits – setting limits on how much people are allowed to harvest and to pollute.
Government regulations cartelize industries, protecting favored corporations from competition. Virtually all major corporations welcome regulations because the use of government power means they do not have to continually deliver the best possible services to consumers to make big profits. And by carefully choosing regulations, government can control who is allowed in the cartel. This way, government can control industries without explicit nationalization. As ever with governments, there is a highly likelihood of corruption.
When private businesses and governments work together in this way, it is right-wing socialism (known as conservativism or in its more socialist forms, corporatism or fascism). Free market rhetoric (terms like ‘privatization’, ‘open market’, ‘commoditization’, etc) is employed, but government regulations, and the use of government’s law-breaking powers, reveal that it is really corporatism that is being promoted.
Behind the free market veil of ‘denationalized’ or ‘privatized’ water delivery systems, lies corporatism. The film shows clearly that the corporations being presented as evil are deeply entwined with the government – through organizations like the World Water Council.
A regulated private water industry will also have the effect of transferring responsibility for ensuring water is safe to drink from consumers to the government. People assume that water is safe, because they assume it is being regulated. In fact, as the film points out, while our water industries are heavily regulated (the nature of corporatism), those regulations are not effectively protecting consumers. This is not what the regulations are designed to do.
4. Free Market Water and Free Market Water Delivery Systems
Whether we have private business running the water delivery systems or governments directly, we will not have the best system – a free market – until water is itself ‘denationalized’ and natural property rights respected.
On the free market, water services would be paid for by consumers or by charities to businesses whose motive for profit will lead them to make best possible use of resources to efficiently provide good quality product and service to the maximum number of people, as cheaply as possible. Only by continually providing the best possible service will the business continue making profits. No regulations or permits to harvest water mean that there will be free competition and constant improvements.
The environmental problems that are caused by government ownership of water disappear when natural property rights are respected. If water is being polluted, the owners of the polluted water can sue the polluter, and this will ensure pollution is minimized. If water in a lake is being over-harvested, those who suffer can sue the culprit, and this will lead to preservation of natural resources. With a given body of water owned by individuals, there will be incentive to preserve it for future use, and to make best possible use of it.
The free market also has a built-in mechanism for adapting to different levels of supply. The price system simply adjusts, so that water is used in fewer marginal (least important) activities, and hence preserved. If a natural resource is running low, its price will rise – then fewer people will use it, it will be recycled more, there will be efforts to find more of it, and substitutes and alternative technologies will develop.
Responsibility for ensuring water is safe lies with consumers rather than with the government. Free market water companies will subscribe to free market regulators, who will guarantee the quality of water. The free market regulators will be kept in check by consumer watchdogs and no corruption will be tolerated. If a free market regulator does a bad job or is corrupt, it will lose customers and face bankruptcy. The free market will ensure that safe water is provided, much more effectively than government regulation can. This applies to the tap water and bottled water industries.
Summary
All the environmental problems highlighted in the film can be blamed on a lack of respect for natural private property ownership of water, combined with private business running water delivery systems. Nationalized water delivery systems are not the answer. This is a false choice. While environmental disasters may be avoided, nationalization is not the best way of achieving the goal of clean drinking water for all. We need natural private property rights in water to be respected (absence of government) and then have a private, unregulated free market water delivery industry.
Pollution – a failure of the government justice system
As discussed, pollution is an invasion of property rights. Therefore, if a community’s drinking supply becomes polluted, the victims have a right to retribution from the polluter.
Unfortunately, the justice industry is usually monopolized by governments. Justice is a particularly important industry, and monopoly control of courts enables governments to abuse property rights flagrantly. The system is highly inefficient and corrupt, with frequent miscarriages of justice and unfair sentencing.
It is government’s control over the courts that enable it to declare water as a common good, that is, a good controlled by them and not considered anyone’s private property. The government courts favor polluters and give no justice to individuals whose property has been ruined by dam-building, pollution or harvesting.
The goal of ending pollution should be part of a wider goal of eliminating government from the justice and lawmaking industry, and instead having free market courts. Free market courts would efficiently provide justice – their reputation for justice is the reason they have customers. Expensive lawyers hired by polluting corporations could not easily escape the justice of a free market court.
Those who are too poor to pursue legal action themselves may be helped by private charities, or they may sell their claims to compensation at a discounted rate to businesses who will take legal action on their behalf. This way, victims of pollution or over-harvesting will receive a payout immediately and there is no risk of the legal action failing. That risk will be assumed by these businesses, whose profits will be a percentage of the value of the compensation payout.
The film raises the following specific health and environmental issues caused by chemicals in drinking water:
- Birth defects near agriculture in Mexico.
- Fertility declines in Europe, primarily where pesticides used.
- Cancer rates up 200% in Tasmania with heavy pesticide use.
- Fish in the Seine are becoming demasculinized.
- Prozac in tissues of every fish in Texas.
- Industrial toxins in seals, whales, polar bears, fish and breast milk of Inuits.
The threat of being sued will lead free market companies to be as clean as possible and to dispose of their waste in the most suitable way.
Private charities provide decentralized solutions
The film admirably draws attention to alternative ways of solving the problem of individuals in third world countries not having access to clean drinking water. They are decentralized solutions, such as water harvesting and conservation techniques, and UV water purification systems. The effectiveness and efficiency of these systems is demonstrated.
The film shows how government aid is used on large projects, such as dams, reservoirs and pipe networks, and this system is ineffective at providing water to poor people in remote areas. Third world governments are often forced to distribute the money to corporations, whose main interest is in centralized water systems.
It is private charity that is enabling the development of these decentralized systems. Private charity has an interest in getting money to the people who need it most, making the most amount of difference in the most efficient way.
This demonstrates that government aid should be replaced with private charity. Private charity is not only more efficient and effective, it is also the only ethical form of charity, and the only form worthy of the name.
With government aid, wealth is seized from taxpayers in richer countries, and allocated for third world charity. It is passed to the World Bank to distribute to whichever it country it decides. It is then given to favored governments, who choose who in their country benefits from it – often large corporations. At each step of the way, there is corruption, and money sliced off the top for the bureaucracy. Since it is stolen money, distributed arbitrarily, this form of government aid can hardly be considered charity. It is simple forced redistribution of wealth.
Private, free-market charities should be allowed to operate without government restriction, and we should no longer allow governments to steal from us to provide ‘aid’ to foreign governments.
With government out of the picture, the free market will quickly establish the most efficient ways of ensuring everyone has clean drinking water. Private charities will choose the best technical methods of providing water – their voluntary donors will insist upon it.
World Bank corporatism – denationalizing water industries
The film spends time on examples of the World Bank forcing nationalized water industries in third world countries to be ‘privatized’. Unfortunately, the film only addresses two alternatives – nationalization or corporatism – ignoring the third and best option, a free society. It describes the mechanism by which corporatism is introduced, giving as examples Bolivia and Natal.
The Bolivian government assumed ownership of water and ran a nationalized water industry until 1999, when it sold part of it to Bechtel, a multinational corporation. Bechtel had illegitimately taken ownership of the water system using government power (when the industry was first nationalized). With government now also protecting them from competition, Bechtel were not obliged to provide the best possible service to consumers at the lowest price, and the result was even more human suffering than existed under the nationalized system. Pollution increased and water was over-harvested. On top of this, charity was not getting to where it was needed, so the poorest suffered most of all.
The film states that the reason the Bolivian government sold the water system was because the World Bank threatened to cut off their Water Development Loans. The dependence of third world governments on the World Bank for loans means that the World Bank has control over them.
James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank and a member of the Bilderberg Group, makes it clear that World Bank is concerned with much more than just lending money. He describes them as a world government:
“We deal with the question of governance, the question of corruption, questions of environment, questions of health, questions of education, and ultimately those things are at the core of peace.”The loans from the World Bank are used to meet basic needs – they are being consumed, not invested in projects that will enable the loan to be paid back. Obviously, the loans cannot be paid back, so governments are blackmailed into selling off their industries to multinationals favored by the World Bank. This is the technique used to introduce corporatism into a third world country. National leaders are often bought off or threatened with a coup, assassination or war if World Bank loans are not accepted.
Basic needs, if they cannot be met by the consumers themselves by producing goods for the market, should be met by private charity.
Without government ownership of water or of the water industry, corporatism could not be introduced.
Water shortages?
The film introduces the theme of water shortages early with several apocalyptic quotes in the introduction:
- “There’s really been a concerted effort to mischaracterize the degree of the threat that’s facing us.”
- “We have wars going on in the world over oil, because of pricing of oil, and if we take the same path with water, that’s oil all over again.”
- “The world is running out of fresh water. People will do anything, they’ll give anything – their life-savings, their house – anything, for water.”
- “Without water we have nothing. Without water we have no life, we have no culture, we have no society, we have no economy. Without water, the Earth wouldn’t be what it is.”
This does not necessarily mean that a “water shortage crisis” is also a myth. The evidence should be weighed on its own merits.
Half way into the film, it returns to the subject of water shortage. There are no clear explanations of what is supposed to be causing the water shortage. Instead, we are provided with a series of interviewees making various remarks. Many of the remarks are dubious or contain fallacies. Some of them are difficult to interpret because it is not clear what the interviewer meant.
- “Most people don’t think about where their water comes from. They just turn on the tap and expect it to be there. Those days are ending.”
- “This notion that we’ll have water forever is wrong. California is running out – it’s got 20-something years of water. New Mexico’s got 10, although they’re building golf courses as fast as they can so maybe they can whittle that down to 5.”
- “The Nile River doesn’t reach it’s end. The Colorado River, the Yellow River in China - they, for the most part, don’t flow anymore to the sea.”
- “So this notion that somehow these problems are far away – get rid of that, take it out of your head, delete that.”
- “We’re treating the water resources of the planet with contempt, which is just so stupid because we depend on them.”
- “Scientists through decades of study and millions of pieces of data now recognize the fact that we’re on the brink of a Sixth great mass Extinction.”
- “You know those movies where there’s the comet coming at the Earth and all of a sudden all the governments of the world say ‘gee, our differences aren’t so big anymore, because we’re all going to die’. That’s really where we are. There’s a comet coming at us, and it’s called water shortage.”
- “Climate change is a real problem. Humans are changing the climate, we already see evidence of it. One of the most significant problems of climate change will be the impact on our water resources.”
- “A lot of people are going to die because of the floods and droughts and social upheavals that are caused by global warming."
- “What’s also tragic is that there’s a lot of awareness of that now but then so much of that awareness is then being used by corporate interests.”
- “There are private, corporate interests that have decided that water is going to be put on the open market for sale, it’s going to be commoditized and treated as any other saleable good.”
Strangely, at this point in the film, the subject changes to bottled water consumption in the United States. It is implying that, in addition to climate change, the American consumer is also to blame for the water shortage crisis.
The film does not return the subject of global water shortages, leaving the general cause as: greed.
Bottled Water – greed and stupidity, or convenience?
The comment introducing the subject of bottled water in the United States is as follows:
- “Bottled water is used by millions of people all around the world because they think it’s safer than tap water.”
The film then makes the case that bottled water can be less safe than tap water (blaming this issue on lack of government regulation), and actually has no difference in taste. It mocks people that pay for bottled water believing it to taste better than tap water.
It may be true that ‘psychological factors’ may be causing people to incorrectly perceive differences in taste – but what does that matter? All valuation is subjective. People should be free to do what they believe satisfies them most, do not have to explain their reasons, and should not be made to feel guilty.
If the anti-bottled water activists are successful in persuading someone to go back to tap water, then they have saved that person some money, but should not be under the illusion that that in itself is helping to ‘save the Earth’. Instead, they should spend time convincing people to give money to free market charities who will provide decentralized water solutions for poor people. That would make a much bigger difference.
Right to Water?
Towards the end of the film, activists are shown talking about their fight against corporatism:
- “The government of India has made a new policy – to privatize our common natural resource. So we fight against this policy and I started a Water Literacy movement all over our country. The water right is the main issue in this journey… Before these multinationals, every village had self-sufficiency. After the multinationals, the seeds, fertilizer, even water, go into the hands of the multinationals. If they can control the resource of life, then they can control the whole thing in our country.”
- “When it comes to water and peoples right to water, we have one common humanity and one common survival.”
In fact, there can be no Right to water without contradicting natural property rights. Since water is scarce, for one person to have a Right to water means that another person must go without, or be made to work to provide water for the person declaring it as their Right. A Right to water, just like a Right to education, food, shelter, healthcare, televisions, cars, etc, would be a contradiction of the Right to property and, contained within it, the Right to life and liberty.
The only ethical society is one where all property rights are respected, and this excludes the possibility of a Right to water.
This does not undermine the goal of having everybody in the world with access to clean drinking water. This is easily within reach, but it should be done ethically as well as in the most economical way. It should be the goal of private charities.
Conclusion
The film draws attention to a number of very important issues and the work that is being done in the fight against corporatism. Unfortunately, most activists seem to be advocating a false solution. They are calling for government to control their most important industry. They reject right-wing socialism but embrace left-wing socialism.
While socialism remains, we are unlikely to see everyone in the world with access to clean water. Activists and charities should fight for property rights in water to be respected and for government to get out of the picture entirely – rejecting both corporatism and nationalization.
The water industry is a clear case of the failure of government, and there is great potential for a truly free market to make an enormous difference to the lives of poor people around the world.
