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Encore Issues | PW | PC(USA) |
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by Molly Graver Although many peoples across the world traditionally consider water a sacred common heritage to be nurtured, conserved and shared equitably, water has become a commodity—bought and sold—resulting in huge profits for transnational corporations and tremendous economic, health and environmental costs for local communities, especially the poor. The shift from common heritage to commodity has occurred within the context of the ideology of economic liberalization. After World War II, the United States, an industrial superpower, sought to open global markets for its many consumer goods and to infuse regions of the world with free market system values. This market ideology solidified in the following decades, especially after the end of communism, as a competing economic model, and became known as the Washington Consensus—"capital, goods and services [must] be allowed to flow freely across borders around he world, unfettered by government intervention or regulation" (Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, New York: New Press, 2002, P. 82). Essential to this economic model is the precedence of capital and economic freedom over the rights of people, democratic governance and the well-being of the environment. The frightenng result is that everything is for sale.
Which parts of the world struggle to get access to water? What are the history and speculations about the future of water privatization? Find out by reading the full text of this article in the March/April 2005 issue of Horizons. Call 800/524-2612 |
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