WATER FOR NEED, NOT PROFIT

Last Saturday in Christchurch an estimated 5,000 people attended a march to protest against the granting of more water extraction rights to the Chinese owned firm Cloud Ocean Water Ltd. The Canterbury Socialist Society argue that rather than pandering to nationalistic sentiment that 'our' water is being sold by an overseas-owned company, we should reject that the water be sold at all - especially since it is sold in little plastic bottles, generating more waste and creating more environmental problems.

"[Cloud Ocean] are just depleting Canterbury's water ways. It's for Cantabrians, not to be given away overseas."

THE MANAGEMENT of natural resources to meet human need is, of course, a high priority for any socialist. The problem, however, with the dominant point of view of the commercial use of water in Canterbury is that it misdiagnoses the depth of the problem.

In fact, a better line of criticism should be that the excess water that can sustainably be extracted from the water table in Canterbury is not being given away but it is being sold - moreover it is being sold in small plastic bottles, generating enormous waste.

It is the chaos and destructiveness of markets that should scandalise the citizens of Canterbury.

2.1 Billion people lack access to clean drinking water across the world. Cloud Ocean are making a significant profit from the artificial scarcity produced by capital's inability (and total disinterest) in actually meeting human need. If there is no profit in it, or if it does not help secure future profitability, capital is not interested. Markets drive overuse of natural resources so long as it is possible to do so - not merely in water bottling, but namely in viticulture and dairying which in Canterbury draw a considerably larger amount from the aquifers.

A rational economic system would share resources based on need. It would plan production and use of resources democratically, but also internationally, so that if we have excess high quality drinking water it can be distributed to those places that do not yet have the infrastructure locally to attain their own. This rational, international economic cooperation is what we call socialism.

Natural resources do not belong to specific groups of people at the exclusion of others based on something so shallow as where one is born, or where one happens to live.

Rather than a stingy appeal to nationalistic sentiments we should instead say -

"Capitalism sets about depleting resources for a profit, including Canterbury's water ways. It is not for Cantabrians alone, and should be managed to meet need and given away overseas where necessary."