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That's true of everything. I'd much rather pay for what I need from a competitive marketplace that is constantly driving down the cost of everything than leave

That's true of everything. I'd much rather pay for what I need from a competitive marketplace that is constantly driving down the cost of everything than leave it up to monopolistic government to hand out the privilege of drinking water. The market works damn well for the vast majority of things with which government has not blessed with its involvement. Water is no different than most things. In fact, it falls out of the sky in a lot of places. Places where its difficult to obtain water usually have plenty of government managing the privileges. The free market is people peacefully trading with each other. Most government is coercion. I don't see how more of it is a solution.

Someone 16y ago
"water is no different than most things" is precisely what this article (and the UN; the right to water and sanitation was added to the human rights awhile ago) disagrees with. Would you apply the same logic to oxygen instead of water? Even accepting that water is no different than say cars, I disagree with the peacefulness of the free market. The free market is all about competition. In this case, competition drives the groundwater table down fast (a couple of meters a year, in some places), and forces everybody to play the game of drilling ever deeper holes.
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  I meant with regard to the fact that ability to pay determines whether you can buy something. Obviously everyone needs water to live, just as they need food, housing, transportation, recreation, sex and many other things to live which require you have something to trade. Can you tell me a place where the free market rules where can't get the clean water you need to live for far less than an hour's worth of labor at the lowest paid job? I can think of plenty where the use of force rules where its not even possible to get any clean water at all. The UN's problem is hardly with countries where people are allowed to trade and keep what they earn.
  - prodigal_erik 16y ago
    The underlying problem with putting water on the world market is that the market value of your labor might be less than foreigners value the water you need to stay alive and fed and healthy. Strange that we don't view it as we do organ smuggling, because the moral calculus (others have the means and now the incentive to outbid you on your own continued survival) is almost the same.
- tinotopia 16y ago
  > Would you apply the same logic to oxygen instead of water? Markets are a means of managing scarcity. Oxygen is not scarce, at least not if you're at sea level and you don't mind it mixed about 5:1 with nitrogen and a bunch of other gases. For use in places where oxygen is scarce — like on top of a tall mountain or in an unpressurized aircraft at high altitude — you'll find that the stuff is very commonly bought and sold.
srean 16y ago
Your comment seems to make the case that markets are competitive whereas governments are monopolistic. I feel reluctant to buy into that without an authoritative statistical study. My experience, though anecdotal, does not lean in that direction significantly enough. On the other hand scholars[1] have argued that much of the first world have made the bulk of their progress in very protectionist environments and have opened their markets selectively when it was to their advantage. I havent seen those arguments debunked effectively. The notion of "free"ness of current markets is also debatable given that it is guarded strongly by international politics. Mathematically speaking, I do not recollect that free markets guarantee equity as has been claimed in some comments here. They do guarantee an equilibrium, which however need not be a good/desirable one.(Think traffic flow without signals). I am not against free markets, I think thats perhaps the best option available, but as long as it remains easy to externalize costs, it will continue to remain broken. Because what you are paying is only part of the cost and someone else is being forced to pick up the tab. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  I believe free markets are competitive and hobbled markets are not and non-voluntary government is monopolistic. When our activities impose costs on others, that should be remedied. If my making a buck creates a nickel's worth of pollution damage to you, I should be made to pay that nickel. That doesn't make a market less free, as one has the right to be free of the pollution of others too. A "free" market recognizes the rights of all involved. And it actually makes markets more efficient. If I am making a buck and it costs you $5 in pollution, an efficient market sends me a clear signal to stop. But it seems to me that government is more in the business of shifting benefits to some for political purposes and shifting costs to its opponents. And that is not helping protect anybody's rights.
  - srean 16y ago
    Apart from your first sentence, I completely agree with everything you said. My disagreement with your first is a partial one. What you describe is an ideal almost mythical free market. In such a market your arguments would hold true, if it existed. The key here is as you said "I should be made to pay that nickel". Unfortunately free market forces alone will not make you do that. It will be in your interest to hold on to that nickel. It is here the free market proponents invoke goodness of human kind or some other force or argument external to the free market principles. Another problem with the practice of free market is that corporations are typically structured to maximize, not the total value out of a resource, but the rate, i.e. the value extracted per unit time. It makes perfect sense for them because for several reasons (and also by way of force) they can keep the acquisition cost of a substitute resource very low. Governments arent ideal either. But a (democratic) government is shaped by the amount of active interest a voter takes. So the control over it is much more direct in comparison. Sans the two major loop-holes, free market is a damn good system.
dctoedt 16y ago
> The free market is people peacefully trading with each other. Then few if any free markets actually exist. Some traders are indeed "peaceful." The brute fact, though, is that that many market participants actively seek out ways: A) to inhibit competition, or even prevent it completely, for example by anticompetitive business practices; and/or ... B) to make the public pick up the tab for costs while keeping revenues for themselves -- think pollution costs and bank bailouts, to name just two examples; and/or ... [EDIT:] C) in some cases, to flat-out lie, cheat, and steal. FOOTNOTE: As I understand it, economists refer to B as privatizing profits while socializing costs, a.k.a. "externalities." These human tendencies to do A, B, and C above appear to be fundamental facts of life. Left unchecked, they can have a corrosive effect on markets. There's ample room for evidence-based debates about how best to deal with these tendencies. But it doesn't seem to have done much good to insist that free markets are a cure-all -- it's reminiscent of the old economist joke whose punch line is "we'll just assume we have a can opener." > Most government is coercion. I don't see how more of it is a solution. It's certainly true that when government regulation is driven by untested ideology, or by private interests, it can make things worse by discouraging private initiative and effort. (Some of the ways market predators try to do A and B above is by encouraging government actors to enact legislation and regulations that favor them.) We've certainly seen that happen at various times in various places. But governmental regulation, selectively applied, can also be at least a partial solution, to the extent it can help keep market predators from doing A, B, and C above.
- pyre 16y ago
  I agree with everything except: > But governmental regulation, selectively applied, can also be at > least a partial solution, to the extent it can help keep market > predators from doing A, B, and C above. I would postulate that this is probably nigh impossible due to the human nature of the legistators/regulators themselves. In other words, it's impossible to prevent market predators for using government to their benefit.
  - lzw 16y ago
    Right, in reality, government regulation is the cheapest way to make he public pay for the costs while keeping the profits. However, those who propose government regulation seem to not perceive government as anything other than an objective benevolent force, and when they are presented with evidence of government being corrupt, they blame the corporations for corrupting them.

Someone 16y ago

"water is no different than most things" is precisely what this article (and the UN; the right to water and sanitation was added to the human rights awhile ago) disagrees with. Would you apply the same logic to oxygen instead of water? Even accepting that water is no different than say cars, I disagree with the peacefulness of the free market. The free market is all about competition. In this case, competition drives the groundwater table down fast (a couple of meters a year, in some places), and forces everybody to play the game of drilling ever deeper holes.

stretchwithme 16y ago
I meant with regard to the fact that ability to pay determines whether you can buy something. Obviously everyone needs water to live, just as they need food, housing, transportation, recreation, sex and many other things to live which require you have something to trade. Can you tell me a place where the free market rules where can't get the clean water you need to live for far less than an hour's worth of labor at the lowest paid job? I can think of plenty where the use of force rules where its not even possible to get any clean water at all. The UN's problem is hardly with countries where people are allowed to trade and keep what they earn.
- prodigal_erik 16y ago
  The underlying problem with putting water on the world market is that the market value of your labor might be less than foreigners value the water you need to stay alive and fed and healthy. Strange that we don't view it as we do organ smuggling, because the moral calculus (others have the means and now the incentive to outbid you on your own continued survival) is almost the same.
tinotopia 16y ago
> Would you apply the same logic to oxygen instead of water? Markets are a means of managing scarcity. Oxygen is not scarce, at least not if you're at sea level and you don't mind it mixed about 5:1 with nitrogen and a bunch of other gases. For use in places where oxygen is scarce — like on top of a tall mountain or in an unpressurized aircraft at high altitude — you'll find that the stuff is very commonly bought and sold.

srean 16y ago

Your comment seems to make the case that markets are competitive whereas governments are monopolistic. I feel reluctant to buy into that without an authoritative statistical study. My experience, though anecdotal, does not lean in that direction significantly enough. On the other hand scholars[1] have argued that much of the first world have made the bulk of their progress in very protectionist environments and have opened their markets selectively when it was to their advantage. I havent seen those arguments debunked effectively. The notion of "free"ness of current markets is also debatable given that it is guarded strongly by international politics. Mathematically speaking, I do not recollect that free markets guarantee equity as has been claimed in some comments here. They do guarantee an equilibrium, which however need not be a good/desirable one.(Think traffic flow without signals). I am not against free markets, I think thats perhaps the best option available, but as long as it remains easy to externalize costs, it will continue to remain broken. Because what you are paying is only part of the cost and someone else is being forced to pick up the tab. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang

stretchwithme 16y ago
I believe free markets are competitive and hobbled markets are not and non-voluntary government is monopolistic. When our activities impose costs on others, that should be remedied. If my making a buck creates a nickel's worth of pollution damage to you, I should be made to pay that nickel. That doesn't make a market less free, as one has the right to be free of the pollution of others too. A "free" market recognizes the rights of all involved. And it actually makes markets more efficient. If I am making a buck and it costs you $5 in pollution, an efficient market sends me a clear signal to stop. But it seems to me that government is more in the business of shifting benefits to some for political purposes and shifting costs to its opponents. And that is not helping protect anybody's rights.
- srean 16y ago
  Apart from your first sentence, I completely agree with everything you said. My disagreement with your first is a partial one. What you describe is an ideal almost mythical free market. In such a market your arguments would hold true, if it existed. The key here is as you said "I should be made to pay that nickel". Unfortunately free market forces alone will not make you do that. It will be in your interest to hold on to that nickel. It is here the free market proponents invoke goodness of human kind or some other force or argument external to the free market principles. Another problem with the practice of free market is that corporations are typically structured to maximize, not the total value out of a resource, but the rate, i.e. the value extracted per unit time. It makes perfect sense for them because for several reasons (and also by way of force) they can keep the acquisition cost of a substitute resource very low. Governments arent ideal either. But a (democratic) government is shaped by the amount of active interest a voter takes. So the control over it is much more direct in comparison. Sans the two major loop-holes, free market is a damn good system.

dctoedt 16y ago

> The free market is people peacefully trading with each other. Then few if any free markets actually exist. Some traders are indeed "peaceful." The brute fact, though, is that that many market participants actively seek out ways: A) to inhibit competition, or even prevent it completely, for example by anticompetitive business practices; and/or ... B) to make the public pick up the tab for costs while keeping revenues for themselves -- think pollution costs and bank bailouts, to name just two examples; and/or ... [EDIT:] C) in some cases, to flat-out lie, cheat, and steal. FOOTNOTE: As I understand it, economists refer to B as privatizing profits while socializing costs, a.k.a. "externalities." These human tendencies to do A, B, and C above appear to be fundamental facts of life. Left unchecked, they can have a corrosive effect on markets. There's ample room for evidence-based debates about how best to deal with these tendencies. But it doesn't seem to have done much good to insist that free markets are a cure-all -- it's reminiscent of the old economist joke whose punch line is "we'll just assume we have a can opener." > Most government is coercion. I don't see how more of it is a solution. It's certainly true that when government regulation is driven by untested ideology, or by private interests, it can make things worse by discouraging private initiative and effort. (Some of the ways market predators try to do A and B above is by encouraging government actors to enact legislation and regulations that favor them.) We've certainly seen that happen at various times in various places. But governmental regulation, selectively applied, can also be at least a partial solution, to the extent it can help keep market predators from doing A, B, and C above.

pyre 16y ago
I agree with everything except: > But governmental regulation, selectively applied, can also be at > least a partial solution, to the extent it can help keep market > predators from doing A, B, and C above. I would postulate that this is probably nigh impossible due to the human nature of the legistators/regulators themselves. In other words, it's impossible to prevent market predators for using government to their benefit.
- lzw 16y ago
  Right, in reality, government regulation is the cheapest way to make he public pay for the costs while keeping the profits. However, those who propose government regulation seem to not perceive government as anything other than an objective benevolent force, and when they are presented with evidence of government being corrupt, they blame the corporations for corrupting them.