Libbies don't watch....

[JimC]

So in your "unowned water" scenario, how are disputes over allocation of a limited resource like water resolved?

Big Government.

Based on what criteria?

Hopefully a set of rational criteria, well publicised, that can be a factor when they are up for re-election. If the people don't like the criteria, or how they are implemented, they can respond in the ballot box...

What criteria? Don't dodge the issue.

They will vary from area to area, but will involve some weight being given to historical uses, some for environmental issues, and hopefully involve the greatest good for the greatest number. The result will never satisfy all parties, of course...

[Seth]

Issue addressed here. In short, overall it's better to have access to government than privately owned water.

Tell that to the farmers of the Imperial Valley in California, whose crops are long-dead because the "government owned" water that made the area one of the most productive farmlands in the world was cut off in order to cater to a tiny minnow, thereby destroying thousands of lives and farms.

That can't happen when the water is privately owned by a plethora of owners who use the water beneficially...or at least it's not supposed to happen.

[Seth]

They will vary from area to area, but will involve some weight being given to historical uses, some for environmental issues, and hopefully involve the greatest good for the greatest number. The result will never satisfy all parties, of course...

Can you be more specific?

And what exactly is moral about oppressing the minority in order to serve the interests of the majority?

[Hermit]

That can't happen when the water is privately owned by a plethora of owners who use the water beneficially...or at least it's not supposed to happen.

Uhm, in this country private ownership of water would result in Victoria whithering and South Australia not getting any water at all.

[Seth]

That can't happen when the water is privately owned by a plethora of owners who use the water beneficially...or at least it's not supposed to happen.

Uhm, in this country private ownership of water would result in Victoria whithering and South Australia not getting any water at all.

And that's bad because? Ever stop to think that just because you want to live comfortably in an arid climate (like Las Vegas) that doesn't give you moral standing to strip the water from somewhere else? How about you live within your water budget in the climate in which you choose to reside?

We have that problem here, where the City of Denver diverts huge amounts of water from the Western Slope of Colorado, which affects everyone who lives there, just to cater to Denver citizen's desire for bluegrass lawns and swimming pools.

Fortunately, even Denver has to BUY the water rights from their west-slope owners, they can't just take it without paying for it.

[JimC]

They will vary from area to area, but will involve some weight being given to historical uses, some for environmental issues, and hopefully involve the greatest good for the greatest number. The result will never satisfy all parties, of course...

Can you be more specific?

And what exactly is moral about oppressing the minority in order to serve the interests of the majority?

You've missed the point, distracted by your ideological blinkers. One of the critical functions of elected governments is to balance the competing demands of sectors of their society - if they do a shit job for too many people, they can be voted out...

That can't happen when the water is privately owned by a plethora of owners who use the water beneficially...or at least it's not supposed to happen.

Uhm, in this country private ownership of water would result in Victoria whithering and South Australia not getting any water at all.

And that's bad because? Ever stop to think that just because you want to live comfortably in an arid climate (like Las Vegas) that doesn't give you moral standing to strip the water from somewhere else? How about you live within your water budget in the climate in which you choose to reside?

That's exactly the point Hermit was making. It would be immoral for the upstream states to strip South Australia of all its water; a system representing all states plus the feds was set up to regulate water use in our major river system so that no one player had a major advantage or disadvantage. One of the functions of competent government, yet again...

[laklak]

If you really want to confuse the issues throw prior use arguments into the mix.

[Hermit]

That can't happen when the water is privately owned by a plethora of owners who use the water beneficially...or at least it's not supposed to happen.

Uhm, in this country private ownership of water would result in Victoria whithering and South Australia not getting any water at all.

And that's bad because?

It's bad because South Australia and Victoria had access to water from the Murray River in the 1850s. Population growth upstream increased water usage there to the point that the supply in the south kept decreasing to the point that it became a major problem. Instead of starting a fight the people decided to negotiate agreements. The first one was concluded in 1915 and became effective in 1917. The net result was such that overall water supply actually increased in reliability and as well as volume due to the large scale of integrated dams, weirs and locks that could never have been created under piecemeal ownership. Since 1917 such agreements not only persist to this day because they simply worked for the better, but were further refined, enhanced and expanded. It's how civilised nations handle their natural resources and build the necessary infrastructure to manage them with.

The Murray-Darling agreement is not even the biggest water management project in Australia. That would be the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Jointly owned and managed by three governments, it consists of 16 major dams feeding 9 hydro power stations, many kilometres of tunnels and aqueducts connecting them and took 25 years to complete. It supplies 67% of mainland Australia's renewable energy. It also diverts 2,100 gigalitres of water that used to flow eastwards to the coast, where it wasn't needed, to the west and into the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers, where it was. Side benefit is tourism. It made the development of (privately owned) skiing resorts economically feasible in winter as well as recreational trout fishing in summer. The time scale and initial outlay for that scheme made it most unlikely to be executed by private interests which are notorious for quick returns on investment rather than visions that work out well in the long term. So that is 2:0 for collective ownership over private greed. There are many more examples, but you are blinded in regard to to their benefits by your ideology, so I won't bother going on with listing them.

[pErvinalia]

That's crazy, Hermit. SA should have gone to war with Qld. What kind of freedum hater are you?!?

[Seth]

They will vary from area to area, but will involve some weight being given to historical uses, some for environmental issues, and hopefully involve the greatest good for the greatest number. The result will never satisfy all parties, of course...

Can you be more specific?

And what exactly is moral about oppressing the minority in order to serve the interests of the majority?

You've missed the point, distracted by your ideological blinkers. One of the critical functions of elected governments is to balance the competing demands of sectors of their society - if they do a shit job for too many people, they can be voted out...

Is that one of the critical functions of government? I disagree. I believe that what you state as a critical function of "elected governments" is actually the very basis of totalitarian majoritarianism.

Libertarians believe that it is not the role of government to "balance the competing demands" of society because that function is properly and adequately served by the free market, which is guided in it's allocation of resources by the billions of individual voluntary individual transactions that control supply and demand with a precision and balance that no central planner (government) can possibly hope to achieve. F.A. Hayek points this out in excruciating detail in his book "The Road to Serfdom."

The proper role of government in economics and resource allocation is only to police the markets and society generally to prevent and punish the initiation of force or fraud.

What you are saying is simply a wordy "just so" redundancy of a "majority rules" claim that is unresponsive to the actual question I asked. Yes, a socialist government thinks one of its critical functions is central planning and allocation of resources, and yes a socialist government can be "elected" by the majority, but you completely evaded the actual question, which is what exactly is moral about oppressing the minority in order to serve the interests of the majority?

That can't happen when the water is privately owned by a plethora of owners who use the water beneficially...or at least it's not supposed to happen.

Uhm, in this country private ownership of water would result in Victoria whithering and South Australia not getting any water at all.

And that's bad because? Ever stop to think that just because you want to live comfortably in an arid climate (like Las Vegas) that doesn't give you moral standing to strip the water from somewhere else? How about you live within your water budget in the climate in which you choose to reside?

That's exactly the point Hermit was making. It would be immoral for the upstream states to strip South Australia of all its water; a system representing all states plus the feds was set up to regulate water use in our major river system so that no one player had a major advantage or disadvantage. One of the functions of competent government, yet again...

Why would it be immoral? Perhaps you are drawing this conclusion based on how things are now, but that's not the scenario I posited, which in this context would mean that South Australia would enjoy no inherent right to water that originates in the upstream states because, well, it originates in the upstream states, which have the moral claim to demand that the water be reserved for the use of citizens of those states if there is insufficient water to supply everyone. Again, I ask what is your moral argument for South Australia to demand that the upstream states forfeit their water merely because people want to live comfortably supplied with (someone else's) water in the desert of South Australia? Perhaps the people in South Australia should abandon the desert and go live in the upstream states, where the water is, rather than settling in a place where there is insufficient water to support them and then demanding that others supply them with water.

In a free-market based society, people wouldn't live in such places because the cost of supplying water is too great...kind of like Alice Springs or other places in Central Australia where the number of people who can live there is severely limited by the unavailability of water to support them. Should Alice Springs demand that a pipeline be built from the mountains half way across the continent just so that the residents of Alice Springs can improve their lifestyle and bring in new development? If not, why not? If South Australia is entitled to demand water of the upstream states, then why is not Alice Springs equally entitled to all the water it wants? How do you resolve this moral and ethical conundrum.

[Seth]

That can't happen when the water is privately owned by a plethora of owners who use the water beneficially...or at least it's not supposed to happen.

Uhm, in this country private ownership of water would result in Victoria whithering and South Australia not getting any water at all.

And that's bad because?

It's bad because South Australia and Victoria had access to water from the Murray River in the 1850s. Population growth upstream increased water usage there to the point that the supply in the south kept decreasing to the point that it became a major problem. Instead of starting a fight the people decided to negotiate agreements. The first one was concluded in 1915 and became effective in 1917. The net result was such that overall water supply actually increased in reliability and as well as volume due to the large scale of integrated dams, weirs and locks that could never have been created under piecemeal ownership. Since 1917 such agreements not only persist to this day because they simply worked for the better, but were further refined, enhanced and expanded. It's how civilised nations handle their natural resources and build the necessary infrastructure to manage them with.

And you think that only government can perform this act? Strange, because pretty much exactly the same thing happened in the West here, in the appropriations states, despite the water being privately owned. You see, rational self interest and free market forces are perfectly capable of resolving such issues without the expedient of government dictates that too often have less to do with intergovernmental cooperation with the best interests of the citizens in mind and more to do with political power-mongering and control.

The thing about free markets is that when a need arises for cooperation in order to bring products to market, that cooperation happens naturally, as in the case of the Erie Canal and most other canal systems in the east, which were built with private capital not government funds. The same is true of the railroads, which are private property not public property.

It wasn't until FDR and the New Deal that the US government began undertaking massive public works projects like the Hoover Dam. Up till then, Congress wisely left most such infrastructure construction and operation to private companies that charged for use at market-controlled rates that were controlled by the laws of supply and demand, not government edict.

The time scale and initial outlay for that scheme made it most unlikely to be executed by private interests which are notorious for quick returns on investment rather than visions that work out well in the long term.

This claim is, of course, utter balderdash and entirely unsupported by history or fact.

So that is 2:0 for collective ownership over private greed. There are many more examples, but you are blinded in regard to to their benefits by your ideology, so I won't bother going on with listing them.

Please, go on so I can further deconstruct your blindered ideology with facts and common sense.

While you're contemplating your reply, I'd like to ask you how collective ownership worked out for the residents of Ukraine circa 1932. Have you ever even heard of the Holomodor?

[Hermit]

And you think that only government can perform this act?

Yes. Shareholders keep baying for their dividends. Too much is never enough for them, and right now is not soon enough. Company directors and CEOs don't last long if they don't meet those demands. That's why massive amounts of investment by private enterprise don't happen if a project is not expected to go into the black until a decade or two after the money on it has been spent. What you call rational self interest and free market forces don't stretch across that sort of time span.

You mention the Hoover dam. It would not have been built if it wasn't for the government owned and run, nor would most of the other 475 dams it has financed, constructed and commissioned that supply water to 140,000 privately owned farms, generate 40 billion Kilowatt hours with its 53 hydro-electric power plants and contribute 46 billion dollars to the economic output of the USA. Those are claims supported by history and fact.

[rainbow]

We have that problem here, where the City of Denver diverts huge amounts of water from the Western Slope of Colorado, which affects everyone who lives there, just to cater to Denver citizen's desire for bluegrass lawns and swimming pools.

Fortunately, even Denver has to BUY the water rights from their west-slope owners, they can't just take it without paying for it.

The water is full of Uranium from Ralston Creek anyway.

Don't drink the water if you go there. Substitute Coors.

[macdoc]

, they can't just take it without paying for it.

does that mean coal producers can't use the atmosphere and water table as a sewer and not pay for it????
seems they don't, seems you don't mind that at all.
Seems both require regulation...

[Seth]

And you think that only government can perform this act?

Yes. Shareholders keep baying for their dividends.

So what? Profit motive is what drives markets and drives efficiency and innovation.

Too much is never enough for them, and right now is not soon enough.

So what?

Company directors and CEOs don't last long if they don't meet those demands.

Yup, their job is to make a profit for the shareholders, which they don't do if the system they spend millions to build becomes useless because the resource involved becomes unmarketable at a competitive price.

That's why massive amounts of investment by private enterprise don't happen if a project is not expected to go into the black until a decade or two after the money on it has been spent.

First, you're simply mistaken in your premise. Second, so what? If the project is not projected to be profitable why should it be built in the first place? The motive you mention is how the markets keep private enterprise from acting like governments, which waste money hand over fist through fraud, corruption and political pandering without regard to those who have to pay the bill.

. What you call rational self interest and free market forces don't stretch across that sort of time span.

Sure they do. What do you think railroads do?

You mention the Hoover dam. It would not have been built if it wasn't for the government owned and run, nor would most of the other 475 dams it has financed, constructed and commissioned that supply water to 140,000 privately owned farms, generate 40 billion Kilowatt hours with its 53 hydro-electric power plants and contribute 46 billion dollars to the economic output of the USA. Those are claims supported by history and fact.

First of all, you cannot say that Hoover dam would not have been built except for government ownership because it is impossible to say that economic forces would not have eventually brought Hoover dam into existence when the economy demanded it. Secondly, Hoover dam (and every single one of FDRs WPA projects) was conceived originally as a way to employ the unemployed at taxpayer expense during the Great Depression not as a market-driven response to consumer demand. Did Hoover dam produce electricity and irrigation water as a result? Of course it did, at tremendous (and excessive) expense during a time when its output in both power and water was not needed by anybody. The farmland that is irrigated by Hoover Dam did not exist as farmland at the time precisely because it could not be irrigated. Worse, at the same time FDR was opening up this new farmland, he was restricting the amount of crops that could be grown in the US by existing farmers under the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act) regulations that dictated how much wheat a farmer could grow, even if it was for his own personal use, which resulted in one of the worst and most evilly egregious errors by the Supreme Court since Dred Scott: Wickard v. Filburn. In short, FDR deliberately created shortages in crop staples by forbidding farmers from fully utilizing their property to produce things like wheat and corn, and he did so in order to keep commodity prices artificially high as he ignorantly meddled with the markets while trying to make himself look good to the voters.

The simple fact is that if the markets had seen 46 billion dollars in profit available by financing these WPA projects, the market would have invested the money to build them, just as it has invested uncounted trillions of dollars to large infrastructure projects to meet consumer demand. And it would have done so without raping the taxpaying public in order to try to tie more people to government largess in the process. It would have done so when and as the demand for the product arose, just as the tens of thousands of privately-owned and constructed dams, canals and other major projects have done for centuries.

The very network system you and I are using to debate this subject is proof absolute that the markets respond to demand by increasing supply without (and indeed in spite of) government interference.