I assumed the parent comment was referring to early water projects as in Roman aqueducts. The entire US system is based fundamentally on property rights. We ab

I assumed the parent comment was referring to early water projects as in Roman aqueducts. The entire US system is based fundamentally on property rights. We absolutely could change that, but today we have property rights. That isn't really modern either, unless you are extending modernity back centuries to include feudal states with lords and kings owning all the land. Land rights come with very real problems, though I don't see how you get rid of them and still have anything resembling today's governments. If individuals didn't own land today the government would claim ownership over all of it, which they kind of do with property taxes and eminent domain but that's a whole different problem.