Public Citizen
Despite Veolia’s global track record of corruption, broken promises, environmental degradation, price-gouging, obfuscation, misdirection and secrecy, the world’s largest water company continues to enjoy substantial support within powerful pockets of financial and political circles. In some instances, the private water industry has garnered that support the old-fashioned way—by bribing officials.
But support for Veolia, and for the private water industry generally, also stems from ideology, specifically the fashionable variety wherein government is viewed as an incompetent, inefficient, even outdated construct bloated by idle bureaucrats, while market forces and the “ownership society”are celebrated as humanity’s panacea.
What the water privateers, their champions and apologists are loathe to admit is that while companies like Veolia have profited from a cultural wave in celebration of the free market, market forces have nothing whatsoever to do with water delivery. Water service is a natural monopoly. Once Veolia lands its preferred contract, which is to say one that lasts so long it will outlive the contract negotiators, dissatisfied communities do not have the option of simply waking up one morning and turning to a competitor. The promise of private sector superiority in the water sector is a hoax.
The risks, however, are not. While publicly operated water systems are managed to deliver clean, safe and affordable water to you and your family, privately operated systems are managed to get as much money as possible from you and your family.
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