What do you think?
Rate this book
Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the World's Water Crisis
This book shows why the protesters are wrong and how more reforms could save the millions of lives and improve the lives of hundred of others.
- GenresEconomics
160 pages, Paperback
First published June 6, 2005
2 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 9, 2018
The book introduced me to many new ways to think about water and water policy that I hadn't thought about before, one of these aspects is 'virtual water', which this quote from the book illustrates very well:
"One of the aspect of water policy that is frequently overlooked is the lack of free trade in agriculture. This kind of trade could be thought of as a trade in virtual water. Water is the most important input commodity for agricultural produce, so when buying produce from another country one is above all consuming that country's water" - Segerfeldt
The second aspect the book introduced to me was the concept of separating physical and economical water by category - That is, to view how much water there factually is in a specific area and how this differs from the "economical water", the water that actually get productive use on the market (no matter if its a private or public system that distributes it).
If this was all I learned from this book, it would be enough, but Segerfeldts "Water for Sale" gives so many good arguments for the privatization of water that I view it as a complete work, in the sense that even though if the data used in the book is now history (the book was written back in 2005), the arguments still hold water (pun intended).
If you would like a more in depth review of the book, I've written a longer one at my blog, along with my favorite quotes from the book at my blog.
"One of the aspect of water policy that is frequently overlooked is the lack of free trade in agriculture. This kind of trade could be thought of as a trade in virtual water. Water is the most important input commodity for agricultural produce, so when buying produce from another country one is above all consuming that country's water" - Segerfeldt
The second aspect the book introduced to me was the concept of separating physical and economical water by category - That is, to view how much water there factually is in a specific area and how this differs from the "economical water", the water that actually get productive use on the market (no matter if its a private or public system that distributes it).
If this was all I learned from this book, it would be enough, but Segerfeldts "Water for Sale" gives so many good arguments for the privatization of water that I view it as a complete work, in the sense that even though if the data used in the book is now history (the book was written back in 2005), the arguments still hold water (pun intended).
If you would like a more in depth review of the book, I've written a longer one at my blog, along with my favorite quotes from the book at my blog.
August 3, 2014
I don't usually write reviews, but this book is such a disgrace that hopefully I may turn at least one person from being convinced by the bias and lack of depth this book presents. I bought it for the good reviews as I wanted to understand the pro-arguments for privatisation. Segerfeldt talks as if private companies have some magic flare that allows them to do things governments cannot do. I have worked in utilities for both government and private, and yes there are inefficiencies in govt companies but when times get tough, then private sector milk government entities like they're a dairy cow. the recent recession proved this, with banks, manufacturing and others all calling for government bailouts. About the only valid point which was referenced is that a free market creates competition. But taking a resource that is essential to human life and making it a competitive market, in my eyes, is disgracefully inhuman.
Personally knowing people who have worked in developing nations on water projects, Segerfeldt overlooks the fact that water supply is already a part of THEIR economies, and when ever the west has come to 'help', even with water wells in villages and the like, they have tampered local economies and left people starving and of no purpose to their community. The 'success' of privatisation is because they chose their own metrics, they chose how that information is gathered, and thus they can tell everyone when they do well. But ultimately, private entities aim to make money, which means they must leave at the end of the year with more resources than they started with. couple this with taking away economic control from developing countries, and you have a recipe for capitalist control over developing nations and the economic justification to deprive people of water. Take that person off the statistical collection and you can take away their life while looking like youre doing a great thing. rant over.
Personally knowing people who have worked in developing nations on water projects, Segerfeldt overlooks the fact that water supply is already a part of THEIR economies, and when ever the west has come to 'help', even with water wells in villages and the like, they have tampered local economies and left people starving and of no purpose to their community. The 'success' of privatisation is because they chose their own metrics, they chose how that information is gathered, and thus they can tell everyone when they do well. But ultimately, private entities aim to make money, which means they must leave at the end of the year with more resources than they started with. couple this with taking away economic control from developing countries, and you have a recipe for capitalist control over developing nations and the economic justification to deprive people of water. Take that person off the statistical collection and you can take away their life while looking like youre doing a great thing. rant over.
February 5, 2016
Good analysis on how private business can alleviate the world's water crisis. Very well documented and reasoned.
December 1, 2012
See my video book review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews