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Exactly, I would prefer it if we decommodified water use with and regulate use base on sustainability needs. It would have prevented all these water companies l

Exactly, I would prefer it if we decommodified water use with and regulate use base on sustainability needs. It would have prevented all these water companies like Nestle from stealing the water from various regions.

wyager 4y ago
Where is nestle "stealing the water from various regions"? I'm sure they've been involved in water rights disputes, as has any large water consumer, but I'm skeptical that "stealing" is the most objective description or that they're even a large consumer compared to ag.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  There have a number of scandals involving Nestlé, such as: - https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-01-20/environmentalists-fight-to-shut-down-bottled-water-operation https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-01-20/environ... and https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-fight-over-water-how-nestle-dries-up-us-creeks-to-sell-water-in-plastic-bottles https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-figh... - https://www.mashed.com/717227/nestles-water-controversy-explained/ https://www.mashed.com/717227/nestles-water-controversy-expl... - https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/michigan-may-restrict-withdrawals-bottled-water-nestle https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/michigan...
  - sologoub 4y ago
    Sounds like the key issue is that local officials grossly underprice water they have. Strange given California just came out of yet another drought…
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      Not just California. Here's an example from Canada - https://esemag.com/water/nestle-sells-canadian-bottled-water/ https://esemag.com/water/nestle-sells-canadian-bottled-water... We can assume that Nestlé executives are sitting in Switzerland dreaming up where in the world they extract the most water from, put in a bottle, and reselling to the communities (and further afield) that they took the water from.
      - zx8080 4y ago
        > put in a bottle, and reselling Isn't is the actual business they do? What's wrong with it?
        andsoitis 4y ago
        > What's wrong with it? nothing in an of itself, but if you look at the strategies that Nestlé employ around the world to gain access to water while cynically damaging communities, it is hard to be on their side.
        PM_me_your_math 4y ago
        Government has murdered people for resources. I trust nestle more than I trust Feeble Joe.
        LBJsPNS 4y ago
        Haaaa, ha ha ha ha ha ha... Like corporations have never ever murdered people for resources. Google United Fruit and find out where the term "banana republic" came from.
        olddustytrail 4y ago
        Nestlé is the company that bribed hospitals in poor countries to tell new mothers that their artificial milk was better than breast milk. Once they had been on the bottled milk they can't go back to breast milk so when they leave the hospital the mothers are forced to buy the artificial milk. Many of them can't afford it so the babies starve to death. This is what the corporation you trust has done. Literally killing babies for profit.
        triceratops 4y ago
        In places with reliable supply of potable water - most of the developed world - the business provides no real value. And plenty of harm in the form of plastic pollution. Bottled water should be a niche business. In the same category as surplus MREs or heavy-duty construction radios.
  - nitwit005 4y ago
    None of those seem to be what a normal person would consider "scandals". Those are either environmentalists objecting to bottled water in a general sense, or the last one which is Michigan's government considering limiting water being used for bottled water.
- bradDonniger 4y ago
  Where’s the objectivity in letting well financed private power “own” natural resources. There is no being objective when the conversation starts in such an intentionally spread artificial obligation to consider. Their claims of ownership are not backed by immutable physical evidence but mutable spoken social norms. Your skepticism alone is insufficient objection to curtail conversation that may rustle Jimmie’s but otherwise does no quantitative damage; it’s not as if mere conversation magically alters the status quo. Rest assured Nestle will be ok tomorrow.
  - lo_zamoyski 4y ago
    That something isn't accessible to the methods of physical science doesn't mean it has no objective reality. (The methods of physical science themselves are not objects of physical science.) In any case, that doesn't mean that the liberal notion of private property escapes criticism. Indeed, that is very much the problem. According to the liberal view, radically individualist and absolutist as it is, property is first and foremost private; the common good is conceived of as something resulting from the voluntary cession of private property. But this is backwards and this notion is not at all the traditional view of property. According to the traditional view, human beings are social animals, not atomized individuals, and this means there there exists a common good. Furthermore, private property exists for the sake of the common good. That private property exist at all is because it enables the common good. It enables human beings to pursue the good; its absence would frustrate it by introducing conflict, an unjust distribution of goods, and so on. This imposes a limit on private ownership because if private ownership exists for the sake of the common good, then it cannot be the case that the private ownership of something is harmful to the common good. If I bought up all the arable land in the world and in this way prevented the possibility of farming and food production, I would indeed be harming the common good. Water is similar.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >This imposes a limit on private ownership because if private ownership exists for the sake of the common good, then it cannot be the case that the private ownership of something is harmful to the common good. If I bought up all the arable land in the world and in this way prevented the possibility of farming and food production, I would indeed be harming the common good. Water is similar. But nobody is actually buying up land so nobody can grow food, nor is nestle buying up water so nobody can drink it. In fact they're doing the opposite. They're taking water from the ground and selling it so people can access it. I don't see how this is any different than a farmer growing food from the ground and selling it to people.
BurningFrog 4y ago
[flagged]
- goodpoint 4y ago
  It's just the opposite of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification - that simple.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    Commodities are available in large quantities, consistent quality, and low prices from many suppliers. This seems ideal for important necessities like water, housing, food etc.
    - remexre 4y ago
      I think the idea is to make water like air, not to make it like art.
      - baggy_trough 4y ago
        How could you possibly do that?
      - eru 4y ago
        Why would you compare it to art, instead of steel or wheat?
        remexre 4y ago
        I was clarifying the kind of non-commodity that decommodification of resources refers to
        eru 4y ago
        Oh, ok, that makes sense!

wyager 4y ago

Where is nestle "stealing the water from various regions"? I'm sure they've been involved in water rights disputes, as has any large water consumer, but I'm skeptical that "stealing" is the most objective description or that they're even a large consumer compared to ag.

andsoitis 4y ago
There have a number of scandals involving Nestlé, such as: - https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-01-20/environmentalists-fight-to-shut-down-bottled-water-operation https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-01-20/environ... and https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-fight-over-water-how-nestle-dries-up-us-creeks-to-sell-water-in-plastic-bottles https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-figh... - https://www.mashed.com/717227/nestles-water-controversy-explained/ https://www.mashed.com/717227/nestles-water-controversy-expl... - https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/michigan-may-restrict-withdrawals-bottled-water-nestle https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/michigan...
- sologoub 4y ago
  Sounds like the key issue is that local officials grossly underprice water they have. Strange given California just came out of yet another drought…
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Not just California. Here's an example from Canada - https://esemag.com/water/nestle-sells-canadian-bottled-water/ https://esemag.com/water/nestle-sells-canadian-bottled-water... We can assume that Nestlé executives are sitting in Switzerland dreaming up where in the world they extract the most water from, put in a bottle, and reselling to the communities (and further afield) that they took the water from.
    - zx8080 4y ago
      > put in a bottle, and reselling Isn't is the actual business they do? What's wrong with it?
      - andsoitis 4y ago
        > What's wrong with it? nothing in an of itself, but if you look at the strategies that Nestlé employ around the world to gain access to water while cynically damaging communities, it is hard to be on their side.
        PM_me_your_math 4y ago
        Government has murdered people for resources. I trust nestle more than I trust Feeble Joe.
        LBJsPNS 4y ago
        Haaaa, ha ha ha ha ha ha... Like corporations have never ever murdered people for resources. Google United Fruit and find out where the term "banana republic" came from.
        olddustytrail 4y ago
        Nestlé is the company that bribed hospitals in poor countries to tell new mothers that their artificial milk was better than breast milk. Once they had been on the bottled milk they can't go back to breast milk so when they leave the hospital the mothers are forced to buy the artificial milk. Many of them can't afford it so the babies starve to death. This is what the corporation you trust has done. Literally killing babies for profit.
      - triceratops 4y ago
        In places with reliable supply of potable water - most of the developed world - the business provides no real value. And plenty of harm in the form of plastic pollution. Bottled water should be a niche business. In the same category as surplus MREs or heavy-duty construction radios.
- nitwit005 4y ago
  None of those seem to be what a normal person would consider "scandals". Those are either environmentalists objecting to bottled water in a general sense, or the last one which is Michigan's government considering limiting water being used for bottled water.
bradDonniger 4y ago
Where’s the objectivity in letting well financed private power “own” natural resources. There is no being objective when the conversation starts in such an intentionally spread artificial obligation to consider. Their claims of ownership are not backed by immutable physical evidence but mutable spoken social norms. Your skepticism alone is insufficient objection to curtail conversation that may rustle Jimmie’s but otherwise does no quantitative damage; it’s not as if mere conversation magically alters the status quo. Rest assured Nestle will be ok tomorrow.
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago
  That something isn't accessible to the methods of physical science doesn't mean it has no objective reality. (The methods of physical science themselves are not objects of physical science.) In any case, that doesn't mean that the liberal notion of private property escapes criticism. Indeed, that is very much the problem. According to the liberal view, radically individualist and absolutist as it is, property is first and foremost private; the common good is conceived of as something resulting from the voluntary cession of private property. But this is backwards and this notion is not at all the traditional view of property. According to the traditional view, human beings are social animals, not atomized individuals, and this means there there exists a common good. Furthermore, private property exists for the sake of the common good. That private property exist at all is because it enables the common good. It enables human beings to pursue the good; its absence would frustrate it by introducing conflict, an unjust distribution of goods, and so on. This imposes a limit on private ownership because if private ownership exists for the sake of the common good, then it cannot be the case that the private ownership of something is harmful to the common good. If I bought up all the arable land in the world and in this way prevented the possibility of farming and food production, I would indeed be harming the common good. Water is similar.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >This imposes a limit on private ownership because if private ownership exists for the sake of the common good, then it cannot be the case that the private ownership of something is harmful to the common good. If I bought up all the arable land in the world and in this way prevented the possibility of farming and food production, I would indeed be harming the common good. Water is similar. But nobody is actually buying up land so nobody can grow food, nor is nestle buying up water so nobody can drink it. In fact they're doing the opposite. They're taking water from the ground and selling it so people can access it. I don't see how this is any different than a farmer growing food from the ground and selling it to people.

BurningFrog 4y ago

[flagged]

goodpoint 4y ago
It's just the opposite of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification - that simple.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Commodities are available in large quantities, consistent quality, and low prices from many suppliers. This seems ideal for important necessities like water, housing, food etc.
  - remexre 4y ago
    I think the idea is to make water like air, not to make it like art.
    - baggy_trough 4y ago
      How could you possibly do that?
    - eru 4y ago
      Why would you compare it to art, instead of steel or wheat?
      - remexre 4y ago
        I was clarifying the kind of non-commodity that decommodification of resources refers to
        eru 4y ago
        Oh, ok, that makes sense!