Water Conservation

Water Conflicts in the USA - Part 2

Water Conflicts in the USA - Part 1

This is to remind ourselves that water is not only scarce in developing countries. For example, there are also parts in the United States where water can become the source for conflicts. This video is about the Rio Grande and how Texas and New Mexico are both dependent on the river.

Treating Water as Common Good

“No to water privatization – Yes to water as a human right.” (Bakker 2010:2)

In March 2000, these words were written down on bodies of protestors to the World Water Forum in The Hague. One of the main arguments of opponents of privatization is that it is unethical to profit from water, because it is the essential substance for life. This is why David Harvey calls water privatization “accumulation of dispossession” (Bakker 2010:2), which leads to social and environmentally inequities. Perreault points out the dualistic nature of water. It is both a natural physical entity that becomes a resource through human labor and the most basic precondition to life: Water is “as dependent on social institutions and labors as it is on climate and geology” (2004:269).

The opponents also criticize the power private investors gain through controlling such a basic, vital good (Chong 2007:2). One of the main opponents of the privatization of water is Shiva Vandana. She sees water as a sacred that cannot be owned as a private property or sold. Water is no human invention, it cannot be bound. She has a clear opinion toward the IMF and the World Bank: “Denying poor people access to water by privatizing water distribution or polluting wells and rivers is also terrorism... [terrorists] are hiding behind the privatization conditionality’s of the IMF and World Bank” (Shiva 2002: xiv; 37). Water needs to be a collective right and a collective management like it is treated by indigenous communities, for example in India (Shiva 2002:12). Moreover, Shiva defines water crisis as an ecological crisis that cannot be solved through market mechanism, because higher prices won't lead to conversation (2002:15ff). The representatives of the 'water as common good' approach also argue that government-run water supply systems work as effective as private ones and can offer lower tariffs on top because they have access to cheaper forms of finance (Bakker 2010:2).

Alberto, Chong. Privatization for the public good?: Welfare Effects of Private Intervention in Latin America. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA. 2008. Print

Bakker, Karen. Privatizing Water. Governance Failure and the World's Urban Water Crisis. Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London. 2010. Print.

Swyngedouw, Erik. Dispossessing H²O: the contested terrain of water privatization. In: Heynen, Nik (ed.). Neoliberal Environments. False promises and unnatural consequences. Routledge: New York. 2007. Print. pp. 51-62.

Treating Water as Commodity

 From my least entry we know that water conflicts mostly arise between adherents of two opponent ideologies of how to treat water. Today I am going to talk about the "water as commodity" approach and my next entry will be about the "water as common good" approach.


At the end of the last century, international companies like Bechtel or Vivendi expanded their ownerships of water supply systems. The private sector started taking over more and more government owned systems. The nations considered market-based water sectors as the best possibility to face the world's increasing water crisis (Bakker 2010:2). With this idea, they followed the so-called 'market paradigm' that explains water crisis as the result from the absence of water trade: “If water could be moved and distributed freely through free markets, this paradigm holds, it would be transferred to regions of scarcity, and higher prices would lead to conversation” (Shiva 2002: 14). In other words, treating water as commodity leads to an adjustment of water demand and supply. The force of the free market can solve the problem of the water crisis.

Representatives of the ‘water as commodity’ approach are certain that private companies perform better than public services in terms of efficiency, finance and expertise. They argue that water should be treated as an economic good to guarantee water conservation or reduction of pollution. The problems of government management of urban water supplies are “low coverage rates, low rates of cost recovery, low tariffs, underinvestment, deteriorating infrastructure, overstaffing, inefficient management, and unresponsiveness to the needs of the poor” (Bakker 2010:2). In short: according to the 'water as commodity' view, the government has failed and it is irresponsible to not let private companies take over (Bakker 2010:2).

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund regard privatization of government services as one way to reduce poverty. To achieve the MDG, they strongly support privatization of water. Private sector investors underline the under performance of the public sector in many developing countries to legitimize the commodification of water (Morvaridi 2008:70). Behind this course of action stands the neo-liberal assumption development can be initiated by market-led measures such as free trade, privatization and minimal state intervention (Moravidi 2008:67). Neo-liberals see individuals as “rational economic actors, who operate in the market for utility maximization and are motivated by self-interest” (Moravidi 2008:69). This assumption leads them to the conclusion that public goods and community are not necessary because every individual is responsible for his/her own poverty (Moravidi 2008:69).

Morvaridi argues that it is problematic to give water an economic value, because at the end the poor have to pay charges they cannot afford. In addition, it is the duty of the state to guarantee its citizen access to human rights and basic standards of living, as they are put down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Moravidi 2008:70).

Bakker, Karen. Privatizing Water. Governance Failure and the World's Urban Water Crisis. Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London. 2010. Print.

Morvaridi, Behrooz. Social Justice and Development. Ch.3: Neoliberalism and Social Justice. Palgrave MacMillian: New York. 2008. Print. pp. 67-106.

Shiva, Vandana. Water Wars. Privatization, Pollution, and Profit. South End Press: Cambridge, MA. 2002. Print.

Water Privatization

 Since Vandana Shiva is such a big opponent to the privatization of water, I did a little background research on the subject. Because so far, my impression is that water wars do not take place between countries, but between private coporations and local citizen.


In recent years, neo-liberal policies focused on the privatization of water. Capitalist companies have begun to use especially urban water supply systems as a source for economic growth and profit (Swyngedouw 2007:53). In the countries of the global South, the reforms have reworked the government's provision of public services. At the same time, water privatization has become a controversial discussed issue because it leads to civil protests all over the world (Bakker 2010:3).

Privatization is a transfer of entitlements that can be defined as a “process through which activities, resources, and the like, which had not been formally privately owned, managed or organized, are taken away from whoever or whatever owned them before to a new property configuration that is based on some form of 'private' ownership or control” (Swyngedouw 2007:52). The part of this definitions that is most likely to be a source for discussion is “...are taken away”. Behind this stands the assumption that resources already belong to someone before they get privatized.

Since the inception of urban water systems, there have always been changes in the public-private partnership. Until the mid of the nineteenth century, the system was characterized by a range of small private companies within a city that provided water of varying quality. After that followed a period of municipalization in which providing essential public goods was more important than making profit. After the end of the Second World War and the rising of the nation state, the water industry became a growing national concern. The governments invested big in water infrastructure that went along with new jobs, generation of demand from the private sector and the providing of basic collective production and consumption goods (Swyngedouw 2007:53f).

Since then, a major shift in the public/private relationship in the water sector took place, initiated through the demise of state-led economic growth. The nations suffered from payment difficulties. The call for greater competitiveness within the water supply system was accompanied by privatization tendencies. Investors searched for new investment possibilities. One possibility was to turn water into capital and profit (Swyngedouw 2007:53f).

Behind privatization strategies often stands the wish of the public sector to strengthen its financial position and to improve competitiveness of the economy. In terms of developing nations, the idea of privatization includes structural adjustments and an economic push to stabilize these nations within the world economy (Glade 1991:2). But at the same time, a country’s society is more concerned about direct welfare effects of private over public management than about the economic growth that comes along with privatization. These welfare effects could be related to the access to public services and their prices, job losses or corruption (Chong 2007:3).

In Latin America, privatization found its way into the relationship between a state and its citizens after the economic crisis in the 1980s, with the goal to reduce fiscal deficits and inflation and to liberalize the economy. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Latin American countries take a critical stance towards privatization. According to the Latinobarometer 2006, only 30 percent of Latin Americans are “satisfied or very satisfied” with the results of privatization of public services, “considering price and quality”. Reasons therefore are among others the fear of social exclusion and the distrust in economic elites (Chong 2007:1f).

Despite to the negative view in the population, according to Chong, water privatization decreases poverty and inequality in most cases, since it leads to a reduction in common diseases through the improvement of water quality by privatized companies. However, the nation's governments need to have strong economic and political capabilities to regulate the companies and make the lower social class benefit as well (2007:4).

Alberto, Chong. Privatization for the public good?: Welfare Effects of Private Intervention in Latin America. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA. 2008. Print

Bakker, Karen. Privatizing Water. Governance Failure and the World's Urban Water Crisis. Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London. 2010. Print.

Swyngedouw, Erik. Dispossessing H²O: the contested terrain of water privatization. In: Heynen, Nik (ed.). Neoliberal Environments. False promises and unnatural consequences. Routledge: New York. 2007. Print. pp. 51-62.

India Water Crisis - Part 2

In this video, Vandana Shiva talks about the roots of the water crisis in India. She is a well-known environmental activist and anti-globalization author and wrote the book "Water Wars. Privatization, Pollution and Profit" that criticizes harshly the privatization of water.

According to her, the roots of the water crisis in India lie with the introduction of non-sustainable technology and the mining of groundwater.