Commodification and Democratization Processes

This chapter discusses key aspects of contemporary debates on global water politics from a long-term historical perspective. It places emphasis on the intertwining between processes of commodification and democratization related to the appropriation and distribution of water. This includes the treatment of water as a commodifiable private good in pre- and non-capitalist societies but also the conjoint evolvement of wide-ranging alternative forms of treating water, and related manifold values and practices, from the utterly exploitative to the solidaristic, most of which have persisted until the present and became interwoven with the dominant capitalist values, institutions and practices. The chapter examines historical evidence showing that humans have treated water, among many other forms, as a “common”, “private”, “sacred”, “public”, or “social” element, often simultaneously, which has been reflected in a wide array of complementary but also often contradictory and even irreconcilable social arrangements for the appropriation, care, control, management, and distribution of water, which include the production of knowledge about water and water-related socio-ecological processes. These social arrangements include normative principles developed by ancient societies that still inform water cultures and formal and informal practices worldwide, ranging from regulation of water-related human interactions and administration of water justice to the allocation of individual or collective water rights and the running of autonomous or state-organized water markets. The chapter emphasises that, though water control has been historically a source of social and political power and wealth accumulation, the development of capitalist forms of water commodification since the late eighteenth century introduced far-reaching radical transformations like the state-sanctioned “free market” privatist, unregulated water regime for urban water supply developed in England at the time.