[HN Gopher] We need a new economics of water as a common good
___________________________________________________________________
We need a new economics of water as a common good
Author : rntn
Score : 189 points
Date : 2023-03-24 22:10 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| nomilk wrote:
| For anyone interested in water and economics, this Econtalk
| episode is unexpectedly fascinating.
|
| https://www.econtalk.org/david-zetland-on-water/
|
| What blew my mind was how different water economics is from place
| to place. Availability of water (and the intersection of that
| with other unexpected factors, like crime) have a huge impact on
| day to day living. I was surprised by some of the vicious cycles
| (for example, water 'brown outs' - providing water for limited
| hours of the day - actually drives _up_ consumption, since people
| get more than they need and store it for later use, often at
| great expense). Somewhat analogous to other 'runs' we see, e.g.
| banking.
|
| It's one of my favourite Econtalk episodes. Highly recommend.
| refurb wrote:
| Econtalk is a podcast i keep coming back to. Russ Roberts does
| a great job bringing on a varied group of people. And his
| interview style is pretty refreshing. He asks questions like a
| novice would with "Wait, why is it like that?".
|
| He had a pro-market view but lets his guests state their views
| before politely saying "i disagree for this reason", then
| moving on.
|
| The 16+ years of archives are great to go back and listen to
| especially the interviews about the financial crisis of 2008.
| He talks to some heavy hitters in the finance industry and it's
| fascinating to hear their different views.
| bannedbybros wrote:
| [dead]
| akiselev wrote:
| My favorite extreme example of the ways in which water defines
| society is the Himba people [1] in northern Namibia. They live
| in one of the driest deserts in the world and water is so
| scarce that bathing with water is a social faux pas. Instead of
| bathing they cover their skin with otjize paste made of animal
| fat and red ochre which acts as a cleanser, protects them from
| the heat, and repels insects. When they hunt the men gather the
| liquid they need for the day by digging up tubers similar to
| cassava that contain a lot of fiber and moisture, while the
| women herd their livestock around watering holes until the dry
| season where they make a b-line for areas with high ground
| water to dig small wells.
|
| Among other adaptations, they hunt not by driving their pray to
| exhaustion or by using heavy weapons like spears, but by
| digging up beetle larva infected by parasitic Lebistina larva
| which produces a very concentrated toxin that they use with
| very thin bows and arrows to bring down pray (which they have
| to chase down anyway).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himba_people
| Mezzie wrote:
| One interesting experience I had was going to the Middle East.
| It was the first time I'd ever dealt with water restrictions or
| even considered my water consumption, which didn't just baffle
| the Jordanians but also a lot of the other Americans.
|
| I'm from Michigan. Fresh water is so accessible that even
| restricting its use for environmental purposes just isn't a
| thing. If we ever run out, the world is already on fire.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Entire societies are only 6 continuous hours of complete
| water denial away from collapse.
| Mezzie wrote:
| That's just wild to me. Even if our infrastructure
| collapsed tomorrow, we could all probably get our water
| needs met. I live within walking distance to a sizeable
| river - I'd be _annoyed_ if I couldn 't buy water anymore
| but that's about it.
| jfk13 wrote:
| I wonder how things would go if the whole population of
| your state suddenly needed to dip all their water out of
| the rivers and lakes?
| occamrazor wrote:
| They are already taking their water from rivers and
| lakes, where else would they get it?
| Mezzie wrote:
| Back of napkin math suggests that the water in the lake
| would sustain drinking, hygiene, and daily bathing for
| all current MI residents for over 10,000 years, so
| probably fine.
| jfk13 wrote:
| I wasn't thinking so much about the quantity as the
| anarchic crowds that'd be competing for access to it (and
| churning up mud, etc...) if it no longer comes through
| the pipes. I'm not so sure things would be "fine".
| germinalphrase wrote:
| You might be over estimating how potable local
| rivers/streams are without professional treatment.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I know how to treat water and have the supplies I'd need
| to do it.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| You and I may, but I'm skeptical that "we could all" do
| so. Even a hacked together sand/charcoal filter only goes
| so far when we're talking about populations.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| It's not so much that there's a water shortage in a lot of places
| but merely that the natural sources of drinking water that people
| use are drying up forcing them to switch to more expensive
| sources of water.
|
| My home country the Netherlands actually has a water shortage.
| But much of it is below sea-level and we pump a lot of non salty
| water into the sea (at great expense) to keep the land dry. So,
| this is a notion that needs a little explaining.
|
| How come there is a shortage in a country like that? Very simple:
| farmers don't like it when their fields are a swamp, so ground
| water levels are kept very low. This is done by draining,
| pumping, etc. Most of that water ends up in the sea. This in turn
| is governed by local policy on which farmers have a lot of
| influence. Additionally, they use groundwater for irrigating the
| land. Because dry land doesn't produce a lot of crops.
|
| So, ground water levels are at a historic low in a lot of places.
| To the point where nature is struggling and water companies that
| also rely on ground water for supplying drinking water have to
| remind people to limit their water usage. In a country that is
| basically a swamp below sea level.
|
| The solution to all this: change policies and stop using ground
| water at an unsustainable rate. There's plenty of other water.
| But using that is more expensive. Ground water tends to be very
| clean as it has been filtered through sediment layers. Surface
| water from rivers, lakes, etc. needs more treatment. Collecting
| rain water seems very uncommon. But there is plenty of that as
| well. Most of it is pumped and drained straight to the sea.
|
| There is an abundance of water. So much that it is actually a
| problem. If my country stops pumping and draining water out to
| sea, it won't take long for a lot of it to be reclaimed by it.
| And in a pinch, we can actually take ocean water and desalinate
| it. This would of course be ridiculous in the Netherlands
| considering that two of the largest rivers in Europe flow through
| it to the North Sea and given that it rains a lot here (less than
| it used to, but still).
|
| Other places in the world have a lot less water. But this planet
| is far from running out of water. Most of it is still covered by
| water and we have plenty of ways to produce drinking water from
| that. All we need to do is transport it around to where it is
| needed. In some places, desalination is cheaper than doing that.
| skybrian wrote:
| I know nothing about it, but it sounds sort of like it would be
| good for the groundwater level to be low, but fresh water to be
| stored somewhere else rather than pumped into the sea? Like a
| reservoir?
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Nestle uses appx zero water. 58M gallons, according to this
| article, which is equivalent to about 181 acre feet.
|
| Agriculture measures their water in Millions of acre feet! (MAF)
| They use dozens of MAF per year.
|
| Nestles use is not so much as a rounding error. And the water
| they bottle is used for it's highest imaginable purpose -
| drinking.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/27/california-n...
| turndown wrote:
| Good thing one of those is required for civilization, ye, life
| itself to function, and the other is wrapping water in a
| plastic container. Certainly agriculture must use water more
| efficiently, but let's not compare apples to oranges.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Yes, let's not compare drinking water directly per droplet
| needed. To wasting billions of gallons of water to grow some
| almonds in dry California for economic reasons
| turndown wrote:
| You have made a strawman where I said growing almonds was a
| great idea or something - it isn't and should be stopped,
| but let's not sit here and act like Nestle is anything but
| a dreg scraping parasite. Farming practices in the US
| should change, and all water bottling should be banned
| permanently.
| ethanbond wrote:
| It's not a straw man at all. It is the definition of
| distraction to even be discussing an edge case of water
| consumption. You can completely eliminate all bottled
| water and it will not make a dent whatsoever in any
| problem that matters.
| turndown wrote:
| Yes... it is a strawman, you just keep responding to
| something I never said. I mentioned regulating farming's
| use of water in each of these posts. I simply am not
| going to sit here and act like bottling water is somehow
| ""ok"" according to some posters here; it is a complete
| waste of resources and a source of pollution and micro
| plastics.
| rayiner wrote:
| > I simply am not going to sit here and act like bottling
| water is somehow ""ok""
|
| Bottling water is okay! People need to drink water,
| bottling water doesn't use that much water, and
| convenience is good! We should recycle the plastic but
| that's a separate issue altogether.
|
| More proof that the biggest threat to the environmental
| movement is environmentalists.
| cmh89 wrote:
| Bottled water is great as long as you ignore the major
| problems with bottled water!!!!!!
| mech765 wrote:
| Next time your are a foreman trying to run a construction
| site efficiently you might appreciate being able to buy a
| case of bottled water for $5.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| They don't have reusable bottle waters or thermos where
| you live ?
| rs999gti wrote:
| Not everyone is a tech bro with fancy metal water bottles
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Oh, please.
|
| This has got to be the most stupid comment and counter-
| argument I read this week.
|
| 1. Metal water bottles and thermos have been around for
| way longer than tech bro.
|
| 2. Metal water bottles and thermos have been used by
| every kind of workers for more than half a century. Even
| fancy ones.
|
| 3. Thermos and water bottles are way cheaper than plastic
| bottles pack. Starts at ~$8 at wallmart
| https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/stainless-steel-water-
| bottle. So, no, it's not some fancy tech bro elite shit.
|
| Now, bottled water has its use but if you are running a
| construction site you know damn well you have better and
| cheaper options (towable water bowsers, citerns, tanks,
| etc.).
| leesalminen wrote:
| > and all water bottling should be banned permanently.
|
| There has been an issue with the municipal water supply
| where I live for the past 2 months.
|
| It started with the entire town of ~2k people getting
| some sort of gastro virus within 2 days. The pharmacy was
| sold out of everything imaginable, most stores were short
| staffed, etc.
|
| Then the third day the muni posted on Facebook that they
| were going to be performing "maintenance" on the system.
| They then shut off the water for 2 days.
|
| Here we are 2 months later and are still dealing with
| pressure, color, turbidity, odor issues. They have not
| provided any additional information beyond "maintenance".
|
| I suppose I could import a sufficient whole house water
| filtration system and import the replacement filters for
| eternity. Even then, nobody knows exactly what the issue
| is with the water, so I'd be grasping at straws or
| purchasing the most expensive possible system that treats
| every known potential issue.
|
| So, yeah, we're drinking bottled water for now until
| there's consensus that the municipal water supply is safe
| to drink again.
| nayuki wrote:
| In metric units: 58 million gallons = 0.22 gigalitres. 1
| million acre-feet = 1233 gigalitres.
|
| We're looking at about 4 orders of magnitude difference between
| Nestle's extraction and agriculture.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Yet public ownership undervalues water, in that one person's
| access does not limit another's, even though water is a finite
| resource. This promotes excessive, unsustainable and inequitable
| use. _And it discourages private investment_. In 2015, private-
| sector investment in water globally accounted for less than 5% of
| the total funds allocated to telecommunications, energy,
| transport and other basic services
|
| ( _emphasis mine_ )
|
| And that is supposed to be a problem ?
| ip26 wrote:
| Private-sector investment would include such things as water
| treatment plants, desalination plants, and evaporation
| control...
| schiffern wrote:
| Let's not forget the often-overlooked strategies of
| infiltration (recharging aquifers vs the typical
| drainage/hardscape paradigm) and the restoration and
| preservation of wetlands (which buffer and purify water).
| michaelscott wrote:
| ...for those that own it, certainly. What about everyone
| else?
| ip26 wrote:
| What's the problem? With more investment, there is more
| clean fresh water, which is (directly or indirectly) good
| for all. The more water a golf course can recycle or
| reclaim, the less drinking water it siphons.
| gryn wrote:
| no. basically they're shilling for nestle water scandal type of
| operations.
|
| edit: to those who down-voted me,
|
| can you provide a reason why having more private profit driven
| investments on water is a good thing that we should aim for?
|
| yes companies should not be allowed to hog a social good, and
| using an economics-style revalorisation will lead to the same
| dubious shenanigans done with carbon emission offsetting where
| companies will do some creative accounting to hide their value
| extraction.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Er, chilling, or shilling?
| gryn wrote:
| Thanks, for catching that, fixed.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| I didn't downvote you.
|
| The choice is often between private investment and no
| investment at all. It's all well and good to say the world
| shouldn't work that way but meanwhile people need water
| infrastructure while you are going about changing the world.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| That's not how the interstates got built.
| eru wrote:
| That the interstates got built doesn't mean they were a
| good idea.
|
| There are always opportunity costs.
|
| The Soviet Union mostly managed to feed its citizens, but
| that doesn't mean we should copy the Soviet model.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > The choice is often between private investment and no
| investment at all. I
|
| No other option? Citation needed.
| rdevsrex wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bradDonniger wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >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.
| pixelfarmer wrote:
| Simple: The real world is not made up out of things which
| are independent, but everything is connected one way or
| another. If a private company has control over water they
| want to grow and maximize profits. First consequence is
| clearly that prices will go up, even more so if there is
| clear demand for that, and secondly they will slurp as
| much as they can out of the ground. Unfortunately, the
| water in the ground is not infinite, it is a shared
| resource and needs time to get replenished. It is part of
| this "common good". So you have to start regulating, and
| also controlling the regulation of how much at most a
| company can draw water out of the ground. Same goes for
| polluting water (not just by dumping dirty water, but
| think fracking and other such things) etc.
|
| Same goes for land use. Agriculture is a main driving
| factor of mass extinction (yes, we are in the midst of a
| biosphere mass extinction event) because they ignore the
| common good, and other land uses bring their share of
| problems with it.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Sink a well on your land. Problem solved. Tons of water
| down there.
| bharathyes wrote:
| not if tens of thousands does the same all around you.
|
| Mexico city and probably a hundred others are looking at
| the effects of that.
| andsoitis wrote:
| There have a number of scandals involving Nestle, such as:
|
| - https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-01-20/envi
| ron... and
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-
| figh...
|
| - https://www.mashed.com/717227/nestles-water-controversy-
| expl...
|
| - https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-
| watch/michigan...
| nitwit005 wrote:
| 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.
| sologoub wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Not just California.
|
| Here's an example from Canada -
| https://esemag.com/water/nestle-sells-canadian-bottled-
| water...
|
| We can assume that Nestle 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 wrote:
| > put in a bottle, and reselling
|
| Isn't is the actual business they do? What's wrong with
| it?
| andsoitis wrote:
| > What's wrong with it?
|
| nothing in an of itself, but if you look at the
| strategies that Nestle 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 wrote:
| Government has murdered people for resources. I trust
| nestle more than I trust Feeble Joe.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| Nestle 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.
| LBJsPNS wrote:
| 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.
| triceratops wrote:
| 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.
| eru wrote:
| > In places with reliable supply of potable water - most
| of the developed world - the business provides no real
| value.
|
| That's for paying consumers to decide.
| gruez wrote:
| >We can assume that Nestle 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.
|
| What's the problem with that? It sounds exactly like what
| the water utility does, except with plastic bottles
| rather than pipes.
| andsoitis wrote:
| perhaps not a problem one some people's mind, but
| certainly a material difference:
|
| utilities prioritize the welfare of the citizens who
| reside in an vote for the (local/regional/national)
| political apparatus VS exploiting resources with the aim
| of maximizing profit for shareholders
|
| one benefit that private water companies like Perrier /
| Fiji Water / Nestle et al provide to society is that they
| "distribute" water to locations where there's less. Or at
| least that what it seems like.
|
| However, on the one hand very little of the water
| consumed this way is by people who do not have access to
| local water. Two; they try as much as possible to
| underpay the "community" from whence they extract the
| water, so that should be made more fair.
| gruez wrote:
| >utilities prioritize the welfare of the citizens who
| reside in an vote for the (local/regional/national)
| political apparatus VS exploiting resources with the aim
| of maximizing profit for shareholders
|
| How is this any different than any other industries that
| consume water (eg. farms or factories) and use that to
| make money? At least with nestle water, it's not a
| premium product so in all likelihood it isn't getting
| shipped across the world like Perrier is.
| Jochim wrote:
| Incentive. Farms and factories require water as an input
| to fulfil some other purpose. They have no incentive to
| extract more water than they need for their processes,
| increasing the price incentivises them to reduce their
| consumption. In contrast, a bottled water company's
| revenue directly correlates with how much water they can
| extract. Increasing the price does not encourage a
| reduction in consumption since consumption is tied to
| revenue. In fact, if margins tighten due to price
| increases we might expect to see production increase,
| with the aim of maintaining the rate of profit.
|
| Even without being shipped across the world, in most
| places, bottled water is still hugely wasteful. Multiple
| facilities, haulage, plastic, stores, and refrigeration
| to deliver something that is directly piped into almost
| every building.
| coryrc wrote:
| > utilities prioritize the welfare of the citizens who
| reside in an vote
|
| Not according to the rate increases in my bills. More
| like padding their pensions and political apparatus.
| LBJsPNS wrote:
| Really?
|
| How much is your water bill per gallon of water? Now how
| much would that amount of water cost you purchased from
| an organization like Nestle?
|
| For all the people here who like to trumpet their
| advanced intelligence, there are certainly a lot of
| triple-o stooopid statements made.
| triceratops wrote:
| > except with plastic bottles rather than pipes
|
| That alone is a big problem. And water utilities aren't
| run for profit. Or if they are, they're heavily
| regulated.
| gruez wrote:
| >That alone is a big problem
|
| That doesn't seem to be what everyone is mad about
| though, judging by the comment chain.
|
| >And water utilities aren't run for profit. Or if they
| are, they're heavily regulated.
|
| I'd be sympathetic to this argument if nestle was the
| sole provider of water in an area, but they're not. In a
| hypothetical universe where nestle has a monopoly on
| bottled water distribution and is abusing it by charging
| $2/bottle or whatever, the damage would be limited
| because people could just... use their own bottles. Also,
| given that bottled water "is a big problem", should we
| really care that consumers can't get them for cheap?
| eru wrote:
| Yes, the profit motive is missing. That is a big problem.
| Jochim wrote:
| I too take a long drink of my tap water and think to
| myself "It's a shame some prick isn't getting rich
| because I'm thirsty and his great-grandfather built a
| pipe".
| BurningFrog wrote:
| [flagged]
| epgui wrote:
| Why do you call it "leftist jargon"? There's nothing
| political about the word, it's purely technical.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I only hear leftists say it.
| epgui wrote:
| Maybe because rightists aren't interested in science?
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| [flagged]
| typicalset wrote:
| This is not a place for your transphobia, and at the very
| least violates the
|
| "Please don't use Hacker News for political or
| ideological battle. That tramples curiosity."
|
| I'd have flagged this rather than responding but am not
| able to.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I think defining womanhood is actually quite difficult.
| We can't really use the ability to nurse, because
| everyone has the ability to produce breast milk. We can't
| really use the ability to bear children, because
| infertility happens and people already suffer insane
| emotional trauma about feeling like they're not really a
| woman because of difficulty conceiving. (Also this means
| people stop being women during menopause or when
| pregnant??) We can't even really use chromosomes, things
| like androgen insensitivity exists.
|
| Biology is just really really complicated, and trying to
| simplify it is unscientific imo. We don't use women as a
| category in studies for good reason, and when we do
| describe the sexes of the participants we have to also
| include contextual information like age, health status,
| and ruling out conditions like pregnancy or hormonal
| disorders.
|
| (I don't really want to comment on the rest of that
| spiel. I just wanted to point out, as a biologist, that
| biology is really hard and the narrative that it is
| simple downplays my field.)
| wardedVibe wrote:
| What specifically do you mean by it then?
| epgui wrote:
| Use a dictionary, or wikipedia. It's faster and better
| than asking a random stranger to make up a definition on
| the spot.
| labster wrote:
| Decommodified water is just taking water from the commode
| and recycling it for drinking. The classic toilet-to-tap
| purification program.
| goodpoint wrote:
| It's just the opposite of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification - that
| simple.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I think the idea is to make water like air, not to make
| it like art.
| [deleted]
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Air is free because there is more than enough of it for
| everyone, everywhere.
|
| Water isn't like that, and there is no way to make it.
| pixelfarmer wrote:
| Air isn't free as such, either, because of pollution. The
| moment you pollute air you are degrading its quality, up
| to the point that certain equipment has to actively
| filter the air before using it. Also keep in mind that
| "pollute" for example in denser settlements can also mean
| smells, e.g. someone is constantly cooking stuff that
| strongly smells and you live "downwind" of that, would
| you consider air as "free" or should there maybe some
| limit to what can be done with it?
| eru wrote:
| Why would you compare it to art, instead of steel or
| wheat?
| remexre wrote:
| I was clarifying the kind of non-commodity that
| decommodification of resources refers to
| eru wrote:
| Oh, ok, that makes sense!
| baggy_trough wrote:
| How could you possibly do that?
| goodpoint wrote:
| You are missing the most important part of the definition
| of what of commodity is.
|
| It's about money. If you have a lot you can hoard
| commodities. If you have little you'll die of thirst,
| hunger, exposure...
|
| > This seems ideal for important necessities like water,
| housing, food etc.
|
| On the contrary, such commodities are regulated almost
| everywhere in the world to limit hoarding and
| speculation.
| jmcgeeney wrote:
| No no you don't understand, people won't drink water without a
| profit motive. We should do oxygen next.
| foota wrote:
| The suggestion is that water is very underpriced, meaning
| corporations have no incentive to try and retain more or reduce
| their usage (not that this isn't in large part due to corporate
| or farm interests lobbying).
|
| If water were gold, no one would let it run into the ocean.
| kwere wrote:
| corporations and people, US obsession with gigantic green
| lawns everywhere is an example
| skybrian wrote:
| Yes, very true, but I think instead of "corporations" it
| would be better to think about three kinds of water users:
| agriculture, residential, and industrial.
|
| In the American West, water is underpriced for farming (80%
| of usage) due to senior water rights.
|
| Not sure about industry in general, but some users like
| semiconductor fabs do recycle water. It looks like they're
| going to recycle more. [1] Cities are starting to recycle
| too. These are water users who can pay for relatively
| expensive water. San Diego is doing more than most cities
| here.
|
| [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/fabs-cut-back-water-use
| bioemerl wrote:
| Underinvestment in water is a really big deal, we need that
| stuff to live.
|
| I don't think privatization is the way to do it though.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Private investment is the cause of having many things we value
| in abundance like food.
| refurb wrote:
| I think you missed the point.
|
| It's overly wordly but it's basically saying "water is so cheap
| that the private market as no incentive to invest it in to
| improve the efficiency of its use"
|
| Same argument people make about fossil fuels - it's so cheap
| (often due to subsidies) that the private sector doesn't invest
| in alternative)
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| where is the evidence that private investment is capable of
| solving the upcoming water crises?
|
| What happens in 50 years, when aquifiers under middle east
| and much of the midsest USA runs out?
|
| There is no private investment that can save them.
| refurb wrote:
| Desalination technology? More efficient use of water for
| agriculture? New technology for water purification and
| waste water treatment?
|
| There are a ton of ways private investment can help make
| water use more efficient. But if water prices are
| artificially low, that investment will never happen.
|
| Israel has 10M people and gets 50% of its water from
| desalination - 75% of drinking water. It also reclaims 90%
| of agricultural waste water.
|
| It's absolutely possible for countries to solve many of
| their water issues with new technology.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| All of those examples are marginal or irrelevant
|
| Shortage of water does not mean you have nothing to drink
| - drinking water is a tiny fraction of water use, only
| the poorest run out of drinking water. It's a solved
| problem in rich countries.
|
| What you don't get is that water shortage = famine.
|
| The problem is agriculture. Desalination is far too
| expensive to use for irrigation, irrigation requires
| insane quantities of water.
|
| Agriculture is so cost sensitive, and the amounts of
| water they need are so vast, that most crops are not
| irrigated even when water is free - the cost of fuel that
| you'd have to use to pump water from a nearby river to a
| field is too high.
|
| You know what would make a difference? Water
| infrastructure, like giant pipelines from north of Canada
| to dry areas of US, like we have for oil. Giant
| reservoirs to store flood water.
|
| You know who builds them? Governments.
| refurb wrote:
| _What you don 't get is that water shortage = famine._
|
| Did you intentionally ignore my comment about water
| conserving agriculture innovations? Drip irrigation,
| reuse of waste water?
|
| You act like private industry hasn't already innovated in
| those spaces.
|
| They have.
| Jochim wrote:
| Israel's water company appears to be owned entirely by
| the government.
|
| That seems to be an argument that you should be demanding
| more of your officials rather than that you should leave
| vital infrastructure in the hands of someone whose sole
| motive is to squeeze the most money out of it.
| b1c1jones wrote:
| Private investment in firms that create water use
| optimization will help mitigate water use issues. That
| includes water treatment, including industrial and
| commercial technology to reduce water usage.
| eru wrote:
| > where is the evidence that private investment is capable
| of solving the upcoming water crises?
|
| You can follow the links in
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_trading
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Why should the tax payers have to fund water investments
| instead of rich corporations?
| dgb23 wrote:
| Ownership
| Jochim wrote:
| Why should tax payers hand the ownership of their water
| over to rich corporations?
| phkahler wrote:
| This is just a way to socialize water, take it from those who
| have it and give to those who dont.
| unity1001 wrote:
| Yeah, just like how keeping a military funded by taxes and
| governed by democratically made laws is taking the military
| power away from those who have it and giving it to those who
| dont...
| bitwize wrote:
| Socialize all the things. Abolish private property.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Eat the... moist?
| [deleted]
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| Lets start with your personal belongings. I promise we'll get
| to the rest of everyone else eventually.
| bitwize wrote:
| Read up on the difference between private and personal
| property before making such a foolish response. Private
| property is capital. Capital is the power to rule.
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| Nah, you will give me your stuff.
| sobkas wrote:
| Most people would answer give you what? They rent or have
| a loan so they don't own most of their stuff. And stuff
| they own is worth less than what they owe(home? was
| bought during bubble, if correction comes they are so
| much in red...). What they can give you is part of their
| debt if you insist so much.
| marris wrote:
| The distinction is not as clear nor as useful as some
| make it sound. For example, is my pickup truck "personal"
| or "private"? Or is it personal as long as I drive myself
| and my stuff around, but as soon as I offer to sell
| moving services to others, it becomes private? Or is it
| still personal as long as I don't scale the business to
| more trucks? What if my brother and I want to pool two
| trucks? What if I contribute the truck and he contributes
| the driving skill, but we are both part owners in the
| business? What if he doesn't want to take the risk of
| capital ownership and instead wants a steady wage? At
| what point does the truck stop being personal property?
|
| My personal view of this is that Marxism doesn't really
| have much to say about organizations below a certain
| scale, and what it has to say about larger scale orgs is
| that they are icky/alienating. Everything else is more
| about trying to verbalize the ickyness than to explain
| anything substantial about the org mechanics.
| EngManagerIsMe wrote:
| This is always the response of someone who doesn't
| understand the difference between "private property" and
| "personal property". Next to zero percent of people who
| want to abolish private property want to abolish personal
| property.
|
| You can keep your playstation. That's personal property.
| The people who want to abolish private property are
| interested in removing the ability for you to exercise
| power over others because you are holding a public good in
| private. For instance, by purchasing land and renting it to
| others, or by using private water rights and making a
| profit from them.
|
| If we can talk about this stuff without resorting to
| strawmen, I think there's an interesting and useful
| exchange of perspectives that can happen.
| andsoitis wrote:
| speaking as an uber capitalist, clean water is a human right that
| every single human on earth must have access to.
|
| there is no question about it, just about how to accomplish.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| Access to water is a right, cleaning it and making it ready to
| drink is a responsibility you have to yourself. Nature makes it
| available, men don't have the right to preclude others, but
| what men make available men have the right to. To prevent
| others from doing so is a different story.
| gruez wrote:
| In other words, "suffering is bad and we should prevent it, but
| we don't know how"? What a brave and profound statement to
| make! /s
| andsoitis wrote:
| > In other words, "suffering is bad and we should prevent it,
| but we don't know how"? What a brave and profound statement
| to make! /s
|
| That's not what I'm saying at all. What I am saying is that
| there probably isn't one solution that would work on every
| part of the planet and further more that in practical terms
| there isn't a single "we" on the hook to solve.
|
| There are probably many different strategies, from
| restricting private companies from extracting water at low
| cost and making huge profits, to building water
| infrastructure in places where there are none, to
| desalination, to eradicating cholera, etc. etc.
|
| But what I do believe is that ability to pay for water should
| not be a limiting factor to having access to clean water
| because it is a basic ingredient of life and so nobody should
| profit off of access.
| gruez wrote:
| >But what I do believe is that ability to pay for water
| should not be a limiting factor to having access to clean
| water because it is a basic ingredient of life and so
| nobody should profit off of access.
|
| Do you, as a "uber capitalist" also believe the same to be
| true for food?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Housing? Healthcare? etc
| andsoitis wrote:
| yes. people will squabble about how much and what quality
| is minimally required, but I would love to see every
| society prioritize guaranteeing basic nourishment to not
| only survive, but to have a healthy mind and body.
| gruez wrote:
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant by "uber
| capitalist", but someone who advocates for total state
| ownership over food production (which is essentially what
| you're arguing for, given that you don't want profits) is
| certainly on the socialist/communist side of most
| countries' political spectrums, and therefore can hardly
| be called an "uber capitalist".
| MrOwnPut wrote:
| You can support a basic food aid while also supporting
| private food production.
|
| I didn't interpret GP to say "total state ownership over
| food production".
|
| Their keywords were "basic" and "minimally required".
|
| That should have told you that they were supporting food
| programs where basic foods are guaranteed.
|
| None of that means they support "total", as you say,
| nationalization of food production.
|
| History has shown us that nationalization of food
| production leads to the starvation and _death of
| millions_.
|
| Free market production has led countries to excess foods,
| such as grain, which can be and is shipped across the
| world to combat global starvation.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Precisely.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I think it is entirely reasonable to tax or even heavily
| tax private property and profits so that we can supply
| necessary water, food and shelter to all of the
| population.
|
| Reasonable amount of water and food should be in reach of
| every citizen. Does not mean production of those have to
| be privatized, but maybe margins can be limited when it
| is bought from open market.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| It is easy to declare rights, much harder to provide for them.
| Who should actually do the real work of providing for this
| human right that you have decided on? And what should they do
| this instead of?
| pcblues wrote:
| Sort of like air and food. Government-funded provision of
| necessities for health via taxes and protection via regulation
| should not be damned by calling it names.
| gruez wrote:
| >Sort of like air and food.
|
| What are you trying to say? I'm not sure where you live but in
| most countries food is made and distributed privately, in stark
| contrast to how air is distributed.
| eru wrote:
| And the government isn't typically involved in air
| distribution.
| unity1001 wrote:
| If they could privatize air, you can bet that they would have
| done it a long time ago. Its still public because they havent
| found a monetization mechanic yet.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| do you notice how their grubby hands want to claim ownership
| of thongs they did not create?
| eru wrote:
| The grubby hands of the state?
| LBJsPNS wrote:
| The grubby hands of kleptocrats dying to see how much of
| the commons they can exploit without cost.
| guerrilla wrote:
| It's not public, it's regulated commons.[1]
|
| 1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/property/
| acd wrote:
| We need to pay for all common reources such as fish, groundwater,
| polluting air quality. However banks and investment companies
| should not be allowed to invest otherwise the market will become
| skewed.
|
| Earths resources are not endless. We share earth with future
| generations. Thus we should try and live in harmony with eco
| systems.
| Bloating wrote:
| Taxes! We need more taxes! But, tax that other guy
| EngManagerIsMe wrote:
| Tax me, tbh. I make $700k a year. If my taxes go towards
| resource conservation and regulating the commons towards
| sustainability, I'm all for paying more in taxes.
|
| So yeah, tax the other guy who is like me and tax me.
|
| (And before you respond with, "Well, you can voluntarily pay
| more in taxes" you should know that I've put aside hundreds of
| thousands a year towards environmental conservation, and two, I
| believe that even if I donated 100% of my own income it
| wouldn't be enough. I believe in taxes as a mechanism, and I
| believe that taxes on income at or above what I make are
| eminently reasonable.)
| mjfl wrote:
| this article is basically written under the assumption that water
| is going to become more scarce, while they even admit that global
| warming would increase global precipitation making water less
| scarce overall. They claim that some areas will experience more
| extreme droughts but I'm not sure that's how that works. They
| talk about the need for international regulatory bodies to manage
| international water disputes - but what will be the teeth of such
| international bodies? Invasion by the US or UN? I'm deeply
| skeptical of people who think like this. Please stay powerless.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > They claim that some areas will experience more extreme
| droughts but I'm not sure that's how that works.
|
| madagascar had a droight this year, which caused crop failures
| and mass hunger.
|
| France had record low yields due to droughts
|
| snowpack and ice is gone, meanong water that falls does not
| stay untill summer. Glaciers dwarf the largest reservoirs.
|
| People like you fail to understand that for every dollar that
| fossil fuel companies made in profit, we will have to spend 4
| dollars fixing the problems they caused.
| mjfl wrote:
| I don't know why you are listing examples of droughts, unless
| you interpreted my statement that global increased
| precipitation would seem to imply less severe droughts
| globally, as a statement that droughts will no longer exist.
| This would be an example of poor reading comprehension or
| poor inferential logic.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| You failed to comprehend meaning of "snowpack and glaciers
| are gone" are are accusing me of poor reading
| comprehension? Wow, that's rich.
|
| Go read the IPCC report and educate yourself on this very
| basic question
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| The total amount of water on the planet stays constant because
| of that nifty water cycle. The amount of potable water is going
| to become more scarce as population increases and water
| transportation/sanitation infrastructure fails.
| mjfl wrote:
| precipitation naturally desalinates water, a normally very
| expensive process. isn't that a crucial detail?
|
| Global warming means more global freshwater.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Still needs treatment, unless you drink rainwater straight.
| And you need to collect the rain, not just let it go to
| runoff. Flash floods are going to damage the infrastructure
| to collect and purify such water as well.
|
| I don't see how that's a good thing. Global warming means
| sea level rise which means more people crowded into less
| space which means more pressure on natural ecosystems and
| more conflict over less resources. Plus a hotter world
| means we're using more of that water keeping crops
| hydrated.
| mjfl wrote:
| Have never heard of a groundwater well? The ground
| collects water! It's orders of magnitude cheaper than
| desalination!!
|
| https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/modern-water-well-
| diagr...
| owyn wrote:
| Sure, until the aquifer is permanently destroyed by over-
| use. There was probably some sustainable rate of usage,
| but "as much as you can pump" seems to be the current
| state of affairs.
|
| https://phys.org/news/2019-03-western-droughts-permanent-
| los...
|
| https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-02-23/call
| s-g...
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Aquifers are drying up across the world from overuse.
| netbioserror wrote:
| [flagged]
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| >>>Yet public ownership undervalues water, in that one person's
| access does not limit another
|
| Chile's private water rights management does not undervalue
| water. In fact they value it so much that a new class of
| professional developed : water real estate brokers.
|
| Private leasing of public lands to the highest bidder is an
| interesting use case that does not get much attention
| eru wrote:
| For Chile's private water rights management to work, one
| person's access has to limit another person's access.
| screwturner68 wrote:
| Am I supposed to feel bad for people who moved to the desert and
| have no water or worse subsidize a farmer to grow high water
| usage crops like alfalfa so they don't lose their antiquated
| water rights? Honestly, two of the fastest growing areas in the
| US is Las Vegas and Phoenix neither of which have their own water
| to me this is probably one of the dumbest moves I've ever seen.
| Are we as a country/society supposed to fix this or do we just
| say, wow that was a dumb fucking move I suggest you check out Des
| Moines?
| XorNot wrote:
| Las Vegas is actually very efficient. The city's water
| infrastructure is well built, and sustainable.
|
| More over... It's simply not the problem either - cities never
| are.
|
| Cities need water for individuals - ablutions and drinking,
| some light industry. The amount they use _pales_ in comparison
| to what farmers and livestock will go through, and the volume
| and type of effluent produced, as well as contamination risk.
| humaniania wrote:
| All of the food consumed in Vegas has to get shipped in. That
| is not efficiency. In what universe are golf courses in the
| desert efficient?
| jiggyjace wrote:
| All of the food consumed anywhere has to get shipped in
| because of globalization... Because that's the most
| efficient thing. And golf courses only use 4 acre feet of
| water for each acre of golf course. In the grand scheme of
| half a million acre feet of water that Vegas takes from
| Lake Mead, it sure is efficient given how worried it makes
| people who don't even live there.
| tjbiddle wrote:
| I understand this is talking about water as a commodity, but I'd
| like to share another side of it.
|
| Just finished a week motorbiking in Laos. It's currently
| incredibly hot and dry. They are at the end of dry season, but
| having lived in many climates with hot/dry - it still caught me
| off guard.
|
| Many of the farms were bone dry - dust everywhere. Doesn't help
| that the regularly do 'slash & burn agriculture' where they're
| burning the forest, clearing it, planting their crops, and
| repeating after they exhaust the soil. We were constantly coming
| across areas on fire.
|
| But no - that's not the issue. The government is corrupt there
| and is constantly selling the rights to build dams. There's no
| environmental survey before doing so - they're just cropping
| these things up all over the place; even where the return is very
| minimal. If there's a profit opportunity - it's there.
|
| This is of course causing downstream rivers to run low,
| preventing water access to farms and villages that rely on it.
|
| And the kicker: Laos doesn't even get the electricity generated -
| 90% of it is exported to neighboring countries like Thailand.
|
| Just incredible to see.
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| in fairness to Laos, the US is the worst global warmer on the
| planet, thus probably the worst contributor to harmful global
| warming-enhanced water events.
|
| we also crushed Laos 50 years ago in a way that was before
| unknown to mankind: Operation Barrel Roll was a
| covert U.S. Air Force 2nd Air Division and U.S. Navy Task Force
| 77, interdiction and close air support campaign conducted in
| the Kingdom of Laos between 14 December 1964 and 29 March 1973
| concurrent with the Vietnam War. The operation resulted in 260
| million bombs being dropped on Laos, making Laos "the most
| heavily bombed nation in history".[1]
|
| and: In Laos, the legacy of U.S. bombs
| continues to wreak havoc. Since 1964, more than 50,000 Lao have
| been killed or injured by U.S. bombs, 98 percent of them
| civilians. An estimated 30 percent of the bombs dropped on Laos
| failed to explode upon impact, and in the years since the
| bombing ended, 20,000 people have been killed or maimed by the
| estimated 80 million bombs left behind. In 2016,
| President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president
| to visit Laos. He pledged an additional $90 million in aid to
| remove unexploded ordnance on top of the $100 million that had
| been spent previously. The work of cleaning out unexploded
| bombs from the soil continues.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| [flagged]
| Jochim wrote:
| The US has spent the last four decades moving as much of
| it's manufacturing to China as it can. That pollution might
| be occurring in China but it's a result of the production
| of US products, at the request of US companies, for export
| to the US.
|
| The only sanctimony is in Americans complaining about the
| behaviour of other countries when it's often in the service
| of their own countrymen.
| esturk wrote:
| Have you considered that Laos is the way it is because of its
| past history and geographical location? For one, it's the most
| heavily bombed nation in the world per capita (done by America
| during the Vietnam War)? [1]
|
| It isn't easy to develop a country that is so severely set back
| by war. Especially without outside help and/or investment.
|
| Laos also isn't getting the same attention as its neighbors
| like Thailand and Vietnam by the West almost as if it holds no
| strategic value to the West.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexploded_ordnance#Laos
| WalterBright wrote:
| Japan and Germany were both bombed flat in WW2. Their
| recovery was based on turning to free markets.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Meh.
|
| I'm not going to count Japan and Germany since there is
| that little "Marshall Plan" detail that, at least as I
| understand it, may have had some small influence on their
| development. [end sarcasm]
|
| No seriously, how can you make that statement and not
| mention the billions on billions of dollars they were given
| in aid? That's the height of intellectual dishonesty bro.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Because far more billions in MP were given to Britain and
| France, who did not have an economic miracle. Britain was
| also far far less devastated than Germany was.
|
| You might also consider the hundreds of billions spent
| trying to develop Iraq and Afghanistan, to little visible
| effect.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "billions on billions of dollars" can be squandered in
| their totality by corrupt elites and not be of any use to
| the nation at all. Just look at all the superwealthy
| authoritarians in Africa.
|
| And you do not even have to look at Africa and squandered
| aid. Russia has enormous revenues from its natural
| resources, but the money ends up in yet more oligarch
| yachts and gigantic Putinopolises on the Black Sea coast,
| while random Russian soldiers loot toilet bowls and the
| Russian army is so decrepit that it cannot capture a city
| somewhat larger than Bangor, Maine after several months
| of battle.
|
| I mean, the last effect is actually beneficial to us, but
| still, it nicely illustrates the point about billions
| being to no use if they are stolen.
| rayiner wrote:
| Fun fact: the Marshall Plan was about $150 billion in
| today's money, for all of Europe. It was nice, but let's
| not overstate the significance. The U.S. spent $145
| billion on nation building (that doesn't count the war
| effort) in Afghanistan and accomplished fuck-all.
| Jensson wrote:
| Billions of dollars have been given in aid to Vietnam and
| similar as well. The Marshall plan isn't an outlier in
| size, most poor countries have been given more, the only
| special thing about the Marshall plan is that it was
| successful not that it was a large amount.
|
| https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Vietnam/foreign_aid/
| iamerroragent wrote:
| They were both administrated by the U.S./Western powers for
| quite some time were they not?
|
| I'm pretty damn sure they weren't exactly given a choice.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The US initially ruled Japan's economy via leftist
| academics. The economy remained flat, until the leftists
| were removed and the free market was allowed to revive.
|
| Yes, the US administered Japan for a while, and along
| with the USSR, GB and F administered Germany. I don't
| know at what point they turned it over to the Germans,
| but Germany's government was a free market one until
| 1970, when they took a sharp left turn.
|
| The more recent attempts by the US to administer Iraq and
| Afghanistan were total failures. It would be interesting
| to see why those failed and the Japanese/German
| occupations were successful.
|
| (Of course I know that the USSR didn't turn over the
| Soviet sector until 1989.)
| morsch wrote:
| Laos is smaller in area and still had more ordnance
| dropped on it than Germany. And Germany was a highly
| developed country before the war, despite heavy bombing,
| there was a lot of infrastructure remaining.
|
| Germany in the fifties and sixties was governed by
| Germany's center right party, CDU. But the CDU of the
| fifties was in many ways more "leftist" (a word best
| dropped from polite conversation) than today's center
| left SPD. Their 1947 policy conference was headlined as
| "overcoming capitalism and marxism"[1] and was quite left
| wing. It was pared down a few years later, but it's had a
| lasting impact.
|
| The seventies brought political changes, but it doesn't
| seem accurate to describe them as a sharp left turn in
| terms of economics. It remained a free market social
| democracy, there was no discontinuity there. Foreign
| policy changes, and a sort of grudging reflection of the
| cultural changes of the sixties were much more important,
| or at least are more well remembered.
|
| [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahlener_Programm
| WalterBright wrote:
| > there was a lot of infrastructure remaining
|
| Are you sure about that? Everything was destroyed,
| because the RAF and the USAAF bombed everything day and
| night for _years_. They quite literally tried to bomb
| Germany and Japan back into the stone age. About every
| city in Japan was firebombed to ashes.
|
| And the German men were killed. Millions died of
| starvation _after_ the war ended.
|
| What was different with Germany (and Japan) was - free
| markets. You can see this starkly in the different
| fortunes of East and West Germany. The first was under
| communism, the second under free markets.
|
| Free markets pretty much don't exist in Iraq,
| Afghanistan, and Laos. Adding money to unfree markets
| just disappears.
|
| History shows us in country after country after country,
| free markets leads to prosperity, leftism leads to
| poverty.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| You are being downvoted but you are 100% spot on. Leftism
| is generally a cancer that leads to widespread
| corruption, misery, crime, and death.
|
| Free markets have never starved 150,000,000 people.
|
| Leftists have.
| cmh89 wrote:
| "Leftism" is a really dumb term with no precise meaning.
| The "free market" has never existed and never will
| because capitalist inherently push for protectionist
| regulation.
|
| Capitalism brought us children working in mines 6 days a
| week, company towns, and extreme poverty world wide.
|
| Left-wing movements brought universal health care, lifted
| billions out of poverty with governmental spending on
| health and safety, and improved working conditions for
| billions throughout the world with regulations.
|
| "righests" like the monarchists caused the famine in
| India that killed 30 million people. Fascists in Europe
| caused a war that killed 60 million people.
|
| Authoritarian populist are always bad, regardless of
| their stripes. I don't know how/where you made up 150
| million people starving, but right-wing populist are just
| as bad, and frequently worse than their left-wing
| populist counterparts.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > The "free market" has never existed and never will
|
| The free market has existed in the US since its
| inception, excluding the slave south.
|
| > Capitalism brought us children working in mines 6 days
| a week, company towns, and extreme poverty world wide
|
| Free markets brought the world out of poverty. Perhaps
| you thought medieval children did not work?
|
| > lifted billions out of poverty with governmental
| spending on health and safety
|
| In the US that all happened before government spending on
| that. The US poverty rate is the same it was in 1968, the
| inception of the Great Society programs. It had been
| steadily declining before then.
|
| > I don't know how/where you made up 150 million people
| starving
|
| Communist countries. More to the point, every
| organization that has tried collective farms has failed
| to feed itself.
| cmh89 wrote:
| >The free market has existed in the US since its
| inception, excluding the slave south.
|
| Not true in the slightest. The US Customs Service was
| created four months after the constitution was ratified,
| therefore regulating what goods can be imported and
| making imported goods more expensive than domestic goods.
| The US has had a highly regulated economy since
| inception.
|
| >Free markets brought the world out of poverty. Perhaps
| you thought medieval children did not work?
|
| You just stated your opinion again? The free market
| doesn't actually exist and governmental organizations
| brought people out of poverty.
|
| >In the US that all happened before government spending
| on that. The US poverty rate is the same it was in 1968,
| the inception of the Great Society programs. It had been
| steadily declining before then
|
| Oh lordy, there is so much that you don't understand.
| Medicare and Social Security alone keep millions of
| seniors from dying homeless on the street every year.
|
| >Communist countries. More to the point, every
| organization that has tried collective farms has failed
| to feed itself.
|
| I understand WHY the number was made up. I'm asking for a
| citation for that number because it sounds like nonsense.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Not true in the slightest
|
| Nobody said it was a "perfect" free market. Nothing human
| is perfect. It was a decent approximation to one,
| thought.
|
| Check out "The Black Book of Communism".
|
| > Medicare and Social Security alone keep millions of
| seniors from dying homeless on the street every year
|
| Somehow that didn't seem to have any effect on life
| expectancy or poverty statistics.
|
| > governmental organizations brought people out of
| poverty
|
| Do you really think that the enormous movement in the
| 19th century US of people out of poverty into the middle
| class came from government wealth transfer programs? Or
| do you think that the US population consisted of wealthy
| people who immigrated from Europe?
| cmh89 wrote:
| >Nobody said it was a "perfect" free market. Nothing
| human is perfect. It was a decent approximation to one,
| thought.
|
| What are you talking about. Do you know the definition of
| 'free market'?
|
| "an economic system in which prices are determined by
| *unrestricted* competition between privately owned
| businesses."
|
| The United States is not, and never has been, a free
| market economy. Using 'perfect' and 'imperfect' is you
| simply trying to bend a definition to support an argument
| you want to make. The US market has always been highly
| regulated.
|
| >Somehow that didn't seem to have any effect on life
| expectancy or poverty statistics.
|
| Ah, so you're just throwing reality all the way out the
| window then?
|
| >Do you really think that the enormous movement in the
| 19th century US of people out of poverty into the middle
| class came from government wealth transfer programs?
|
| Why are you talking about wealth transfer programs? What
| are you talking about?
|
| Your knowledge on this subject seems to be realllly
| skewed towards what someone who consumes a lot of right-
| wing media content would think. I encourage you to do
| some actual reading on the subject.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > The US market has always been highly regulated.
|
| Describe what you consider as "highly regulated".
|
| > Why are you talking about wealth transfer programs?
|
| You brought up Medicare and Social Security.
|
| > Your knowledge on this subject seems to be realllly
| skewed towards what someone who consumes a lot of right-
| wing media content would think
|
| What I read are history books.
| morsch wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-
| birth-...
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-
| age?time=earliest....
| morsch wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure about that. Let's take a famous example,
| Dresden[1]: after the bombings, most industry was still
| standing (though not operating), 50+% of living quarters
| were left, 70% of retail was still operating; rudimentary
| civilian rail operations were resumed after two weeks,
| military rail operation resumed within days.
|
| And while some areas were partially destroyed, once you
| move into the suburbs not to mention the rural areas,
| everything was left standing. And even where there was
| rubble, under the rubble were roads and within the rubble
| were bricks.
|
| They may have tried to bomb Germany back to the stone
| age, but they couldn't; from what was recently posted
| here, they probably realized this, but they did try to
| bomb the population into submission[2], which also didn't
| work, it's just a war crime.
|
| Millions of Germans did not die of starvation after the
| war, though _hundreds of thousands_ died of starvation
| and exposure in 1946 /47, which was the harshest winter
| of the 20th century. I'm not sure how that jives with
| your whole free market thing; but like I said, Germany in
| the fifties wasn't the libertarian utopia you make it out
| to be, so that's probably why people died.
|
| Edit: Let me hasten to add that I don't want to minimize
| the impact bombing campaigns have on cities and
| countries. Tens of thousands of people died in Dresden.
| We still dig out unexploded ordnance where I live, 80
| years after the fact. I'm just saying that a lot of
| _infrastructure_ remained. Germany after the war probably
| had more infrastructure left standing than Laos did
| before the war.
|
| [1]
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftangriffe_auf_Dresden
|
| [2] https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-
| airpower...
| WalterBright wrote:
| > though hundreds of thousands died of starvation and
| exposure in 1946/47
|
| "More than nine million Germans died as a result of
| Allied starvation and expulsion policies in the first
| five years after the Second World War-a total far in
| excess of the figures actually reported."
| -- "Crimes & Mercies" by James Bacque
|
| The book is controversial, but you should be aware of it.
|
| > I'm not sure how that jives with your whole free market
| thing
|
| The free market thing started around 1950.
|
| > Germany in the fifties wasn't the libertarian utopia
| you make it out to be, so that's probably why people died
|
| The deaths were before 1950. As for libertarian utopia, I
| never said that. I said it was the free market that
| enabled Germany to rise from utter devastation to be the
| dominant economic power in Europe in just 20 years.
|
| As for Dresden, it was a civilian target, not an
| industrial one. The US usually targeted industry. It also
| did not participate in the German Miracle, because it was
| in the Soviet sector.
|
| Lastly, the German bombing of England was concentrated on
| London civilian targets, not industrial targets, and it
| didn't impact infrastructure and industry much. The
| Luftwaffe also could only reach a small fraction of
| England, most of the industry was safely out of range.
| The British went hungry during the war, but they didn't
| starve.
|
| For reference, the series of Impact books gives a good
| overview of the effect of the bombing campaigns on
| Germany and Japan.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Impact-Forces-Confidential-
| Picture-Hi...
|
| More:
|
| "Bomber Harris and the Strategic Bombing Offensive" by
| Charles Messenger
|
| "Gruesome Harvest" by Ralph Franklin Keeling
|
| "Maximum Effort the B-29s against Japan" by Kevin Herbert
|
| "Target Germany" US Army Air Force
|
| A bit of caution: these are not nice books.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| And $173 billion (current equivalent) in aid, in Europe
| alone:
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan>
|
| Japan's recovery benefitted as well from US post-war
| assistance, though also from a deliberate government-led
| economic policy as well.
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_economic_miracle>
| WalterBright wrote:
| Much larger MP sums were given to Britain and France than
| Germany, and only Germany had the miracle. From your
| link.
| pyrale wrote:
| > only Germany had the miracle. From your link.
|
| You're aware that there was no actual "miracle", right?
| It's just a name given to an economic boom, which France
| and Britain also experienced, under different names
| (golden age for the UK, trente glorieuses for France).
| WalterBright wrote:
| The German Miracle was far more than what happened in
| France and Britain.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The miracle in France is called the Trente Glorieuses, "a
| thirty-year period of economic growth in France between
| 1945 and 1975, following the end of the Second World
| War":
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses>
|
| Germany and Japan both _benefitted_ by the fact that
| their extant infrastructure _and owners_ were demolished,
| removed, and /or financially wiped out by the war and/or
| the ensuing occupation and denazification /
| deimperilisation (in Germany and Japan respectively),
| which removed ownership-based objections to new
| development and investment --- think NIMBYism, but on
| steroids.
|
| There's an article I've mentioned and submitted to HN
| numerous times, Bernhard J. Stern's "Resistances to the
| Adoption of Technological Innovations" (1937). I'd first
| heard of it through Isaac Asimov who was a research
| assistant for Stern whilst a student at Columbia.
|
| <https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich
| /pag...>
|
| As markdown: <https://rentry.co/szi3g>
|
| The piece looks at the innate opposition to technological
| (and economic) innovations and advance _largely from
| extant established interests, in the areas of
| transportation, communication, power, metals, textiles,
| agriculture, and construction.
|
| Something I've noticed in looking at development is that
| _greenfield projects* in which there is no extant
| political, social, and economic power structure to
| present an opposition move _far_ faster than those with a
| well-developed set of independent agents. This is highly
| pronounced in transportation, where initial route
| deployment occurs through undeveloped lands. _As the
| transportation itself_ induces further development,
| commerce, residences, industry, etc., _those interests
| themselves impose high frictions and costs on further
| development_.
|
| To put it another way, _simply following financial
| amounts hugely distorts understanding of the impact of
| assistance_. Money spent in Germany and Japan (both
| physically, politically, and financially devastated by
| World War II) went _far_ further than equivalent sums in
| either occupied but victorious regions (e.g., France) or
| unoccupied victors (e.g., UK).
|
| It's interesting to note that high-speed rail (HSR)
| development has proceeded most rapidly in regions either
| strongly disrupted by WWII, or in which industrialisation
| is now occurring for the first time to any significant
| degree: Japan, France, Germany, and China most notably.
| HSR's failure-to-launch in the US is attributable in
| large part to resistance from regional airlines
| (SouthWest most notably for the proposed "Texas Triangle"
| routes), and high land costs and dense extant development
| (both East and West coast projects).
|
| Single-factor explanations are of course limited. Italy
| (defeated and occupied) did _not_ see the same post-war
| rebound as its Axis allies Germany and Japan did, though
| it did of course grow. The Eastern Bloc similarly lagged,
| likely for other reasons (though it also often saw a far
| more rapid _initial_ response, see notably North and
| South Korea 's respective development following the 1953
| armistice, with the North greatly outpacing the South).
| jahewson wrote:
| Every place is the way it is because of its past history and
| geographical location.
| rayiner wrote:
| > Laos also isn't getting the same attention as its neighbors
| like Thailand and Vietnam by the West almost as if it holds
| no strategic value to the West.
|
| This is a really offensive mindset. As if developing
| countries can only progress by getting "attention ... from
| the west." Thailand and Vietnam haven't been getting
| "attention ... from the west" because of their "strategic
| value" or any special humanitarian concerns. It's because
| those countries have been building up their financial systems
| and industry. And countries in this region are progressing by
| aligning with Russia and China often in opposition to what
| Western countries would want.
| esturk wrote:
| Apparently, you disregarded the entire first part of my
| point which was that they were bombed so heavily that set
| them back decades. They need outside investment to jump
| start development. Just like Japan and Germany did after
| WW2.
|
| You speak as if Thailand and Vietnam didn't hold important
| geopolitical values that the West and China want to exploit
| which makes them attractive to investments.
|
| Those same countries still need to court outside
| investments to build out infrastructure and industries like
| recent efforts to move manufacturing to southeast Asia.
| gedy wrote:
| I think we need to quit blaming the utter failure of
| communist systems and corruption on "American bombs" 50
| years ago.
| pr0zac wrote:
| I'm not exactly a fan of authoritarian communism but the
| point you're trying to make here fails considering
| Vietnam, one of the countries used as a successful
| example, has the exact same governing system as Laos.
|
| Also the point made that the main difference between
| which countries recover and which don't post-war is
| whether they receive economic investment doesn't seem to
| be relevant to communism or who exactly did the previous
| bombing at all.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| That's one of their problems. But if you've visited the real
| problems are very apparent, and they start with their form of
| highly corrupt communism and hostility to the outside world.
| It's not getting the attention from the west because the
| government is highly insular. Being the most efficient route
| to China and between Vietnam and Thailand makes it very
| strategically important, and China is probably more
| responsible for the state of Laos than anywhere else. It's
| very much in their interest the west has no toe hold there,
| and that it stay effectively a vassal state dependent on
| their patronage.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Just one thing to note, I'm sure among many: if I lived in
| a place they got bombed so much by outsiders, I'd probably
| become insular and hostile to outsiders.
|
| Not saying I think they should stay that way, but maybe
| just adding one perspective on why they might feel that
| way.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| In my time in Laos the people were incredibly welcoming
| and open to foreigners. I spent most my time around Paxe
| which is very rural, but also around the most intense
| American involvement as well. It may be different further
| north near the capital but there was a lot less bombing
| and special forces counter insurgency. I think, while not
| justifying anything, it's really important to note that
| the Chinese and north Vietnamese had invaded Laos and
| were actively destabilizing the government and led to its
| collapse, as well as invited the American bombing
| campaigns that were focused on north Vietnamese captured
| territories. It's easy to lay the blame on the US, but
| it's not like China wasn't directly responsible for
| drawing Laos into that position by force through the
| north Vietnamese proxy. The US tried to keep the central
| government of Laos from collapsing while China actively
| subverted it and installed the government they have
| today. Prior to French colonialism China pillaged Laos
| ransacking and razing their cities repeatedly to the
| point of causing a significant labor shortage in Laos.
| France tried to solve this through forced migrations from
| Vietnam to Laos to repopulate the country, leading to
| further instability. So - it's not just the bombing, it's
| a major confluence of really shitty behavior by a lot of
| people over Laos primarily because of its strategic
| importance, but if I were to lay blame on an outsider for
| their problems, I would place it entirely on China. Laos
| has been a pawn in chinas ambition for hundreds of years
| and it has it under complete control and subjugation at
| this point in time. Finally I would note almost all the
| bombing happened in very sparsely populated areas. It's
| not like Europe or Japan where it was a wholesale bombing
| of major population centers. There were no dresdens, no
| nagasakis, fire bombings of Tokyo - all of which happened
| to countries that have embraced the world outside them.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I really appreciate you writing this and giving me not
| context to what happened--thank you.
| lenova wrote:
| Hi there, I would love to hear more about your trip. I lived in
| Laos for a few months a decade ago, just outside of Vang Vieng.
| I think of the country often, and can only imagine just how
| much it has changed.
| j16sdiz wrote:
| For a bit of context, Laos had been complaining China doing the
| same in the upstream.
|
| Basically every nation in that area is acting in the most
| selfish way possible and distrusting each other.
| andromeduck wrote:
| Wdym?! That's precisely why they're daming up - to create a
| buffer for water security. If they didn't then they'd be at
| risk of shortage if China were to dump and then let it
| refill.
| anotheraccount9 wrote:
| Next century: " We need a new economics of air as a common good".
| jlhawn wrote:
| Georgism?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| If you are interested in better understanding water issues, I
| highly recommend the books _Salt Dreams_ , which is about the
| Colorado River, Salton Sea and water history in Southern
| California, and _Water for a thirsty land_ , which is the history
| of water development in Fresno County, California where a lot of
| water rights issues were hashed out historically in court and a
| lot of equipment was invented and patented, etc.
|
| Fresno has a very interesting water history and has done a good
| job of learning to recharge its aquifer, among other things. It
| probably has better water security than most of California and
| anyone interested in improving water security for their region
| would do well to learn a little something about Fresno.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27566605
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Doesn't that go against the entire ethos of the YC community? Is
| this post going to stay up?
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