“Free Market” Privatist Water Politics

This chapter discusses the “free market” privatist water regime for essential water-only services developed in England since the late eighteenth century, which would become dominant in the country by the mid-nineteenth century and exported at the time to other European countries and worldwide, in the context of what some authors termed the “first wave of globalization”, with mixed results. It addresses the English case, which provided a template for what in the late twentieth century would be an attempt to revive “free market” water politics, but also considers the case of France, the United States, Catalonia, and examples of its exportation to Latin American countries. It highlights that French and Catalonian private water companies created in the nineteenth century would become dominant global multinational private water monopolies playing major roles in the attempted revival of “free market” water politics in the late twentieth century. The chapter examines in detail the processes that led to the demise of the “free market” privatist water regime by the late nineteenth century in England, Europe, the United States, and worldwide, owing to its blatant failures, including poor quality and discriminatory service provision, high costs, and reluctance to deal with “dirty water”, which led to recurrent socio-ecological crises. It would be eventually substituted by state-led funded and managed public provision of essential water and sanitation services.