Water in Communism: Meeting Basic Human Needs
DETROIT, USA – An older black woman declared at a recent conference that capitalism is clearly not working for us and if we can’t see this, maybe they are drugging our water! She pointed out the ridiculousness of a homeless person in front of an abandoned empty home. How a person can’t even die and be buried for free. The poor are constantly raising funds to bury their dead killed by the system prematurely. She said, “We might as well occupy the cemeteries and dig our own graves if we choose to do nothing.”
Conference attendees represented various social movements on water. There was tremendous anger at the racist system that refuses to meet such a basic human need as clean water.
For example, a Detroit study found that nearly 500 families who applied for a relief program had been cited at least once for illegal water consumption. Essentially, they tampered with water meters to illegally restore service after shutoff for non-payment.
Capitalism has commodified our labor power, the land, and now the water. They would commodify the air we breathe if they figured out how.
Look at bottled water. It’s the most frequently-purchased beverage in the USA: about 26 billion bottles per year. Most bottles end up in landfills and incinerators somewhere, polluting the environment. Usually the bottled water is no better than tap water. It often costs more than a gallon of gasoline. And companies like Nestle pay little or nothing for the right to bottle and sell it.
In areas that don’t have clean water, FREE bottled water could help in the short term, but it’s no solution. We should be uniting against the capitalist system that cannot provide for basic human needs. Communism – a system based on human needs, with no money or private property – will ensure that everyone has access to clean water and sanitation. We won’t need or want bottled water. The need for communism should be part of our conversations and analysis of this and every problem.
The water on Earth today is the same water that has been here for millions of years. It didn’t “belong” to anyone. Why do we allow a few to claim it as private property? Three-fourths of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. There is certainly enough for all.
Yet twelve percent of US households can’t afford water. Over two billion people worldwide lack access to clean water and sanitation. The United Nations hopes to change this within 15 years. But people need clean water NOW. We need to mobilize for communism NOW.
We live in a violent system at war in every way with the poor, our youth, minorities, and the whole working class. And as one speaker said, “The good news is that there are more of us than there is of them!”
Most of the action items proposed at the conference were reforms like the Water Act and the Water Affordability Act. However, several voices said that we need to get at the root cause of the problem with a class-conscious multi-racial working class united to create a better world.
A comrade who attended the conference made seven new contacts with people who want to receive Party literature. She had long conversations with two social workers about communism. They will also get literature.
The woman quoted earlier declared that we need to act together to take what is ours. It is time for us to take the whole pie and stop settling for crumbs that are later taken away. Better yet, let’s take the bakery.
That will take communist revolution. We need the vision for a new system. We need communist ideas to be the ideas of the working class. We can’t afford another reform struggle. Capitalism was not designed to benefit the working class no matter how much capitalists try to convince us otherwise.
The same woman concluded, “And for those who say we must simply pray, please move out of our way so we can do. And when the good lord asks what YOU did to help us you can tell him all about your praying.”
We have a world to win! Either you take action or support or move out of the way! We have nothing to lose but our chains!
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