Kill the Capitalists!

Submitted by Aguanomics Blog

So, as promised, I went to the anti-corporate water footprint conference greenwashing rally in SF on Tuesday night [Chronicle article].

The bad news was that Maude Barlow was not there. Apparently, she couldn’t make it because she was working with the opposition to overthrow Canada’s Conservative government. (I wonder what will happen when she becomes the UN’s water czarina?)

The good news was that there were plenty of activists left over to denounce corporate involvement in water. That meant that I got to hear numerous examples of misplaced passion and terrible economics.

Before I proceed, let me remind readers that I agree that corporate water footprinting (i.e., the conference next week) is mostly about greenbluewashing, i.e., advertising nice-nice to sell more SUVs and bottled water.

Here’s the gist of what the speakers said:

• Water and profits are not compatible.
• Shortages will get worse because private monopolies make more money in shortage.
• Companies are wasting water on useless products, e.g., bottled water, packaged food, etc.
• Corporations are destroying ecosystems, groundwater, etc.
• Stop corporations before we get Atlanta, Cochabamba, et al. again.

Now readers of this blog will know that I am just as quick to condemn corporations as governments for mismanagement of water. What appalled me was the lack of balance in these passionate calls for outrage and action.

Where was the passionate critique of failure and mismanagement by politicians, bureaucrats, and — most important — the municipal water companies that deliver 80% of the drinking water in the US?

My guess is that these activists, like many others, were more interested in passionate righteousness than cold truth, preferring ideological stands to pragmatic results. (They booed Obama’s choice of Larry Summers, a man forever cursed for asking an important question. Poor Obama — trying to actually govern.)

Here are a few examples:

1. They condemned companies for selling useless products (supply) but forgot to mention that customers like buying those products (demand).
2. They claimed that a “water cartel” was going to take over the world’s water supply but forgot to mention that the most famous cartel (OPEC) is organized by governments, that most (if not all) water is “owned” by governments, and that companies are competing (e.g., GE may make desalination equipment, but it cannot profit from water shortages unless it can prevent entry by other equipment manufacturers).
3. They denounced “evil” Coke for overpumping Indian groundwater but forgot to mention that the Indian government’s policy of free electricity for farmers has resulted in much more overpumping.
4. They said it was easy to hold public officials accountable if municipal water managers fail, unlike “private monopolies that face no such accountability” but forgot to mention that private companies’ prices are regulated and their contracts can be revoked.
5. They condemned corporate food and advocated local food (”you guys in the Bay Area are so lucky that you can get local food”) but forgot to mention that it’s not possible to grow local food in sufficient quantities in many parts of the world.
6. They condemned private companies are overpumping and exporting groundwater but failed to mention that [bad] laws allow them to do that.

My favorite factoid [roughly]: “The five biggest food manufacturing corporations use 575,000,000,000 liters of water in the US!” How much is that? About 450,000 AF of water — or about 1.3% of the total water used in California. Besides being a small amount, this “fact” means nothing: All that water is used to manufacture products that consumers DEMAND.

Their unmitigated attack on corporations and private enterprise really bothered me. I don’t know about you, but capitalism has done a lot of good for me. Sure, profits can increase pollution, stress workers, and feed corruption, but all of these “market failures” are only possible when accompanied by “government failure” — failure to tax or regulate pollution, failure to protect people (instead of companies), and failure to prevent the award of public wealth by public servants to private parties.

Remember that more people were killed by their own governments (e.g., USSR, China, genocides in Darfur, Nazi Germany, Turkey, etc.) than by foreign governments in war. Even more important — companies kill way fewer people. (Smokers are committing suicide

Bottom Line: So much heat and light and so little useful information. If citizens want to “end the water crisis” they should monitor their local water suppliers, press for regulation and monitoring of groundwater withdrawals, encourage higher water prices, and encourage transparency and competition in respectively both government and business. (Oh, and don’t forget to donate $$ to anti-corporate NGOs

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