I'm just answering these questions to the best of my ability.

This is an interesting question.

Really it comes down to social norms, as does everything else. Social norms can evolve based on what works and doesn't work.

One thing I would be more sure of is there would be more ownership of our waterways. This is something the government does a terrible job of as it is a terrible steward of resources.

But there is potential for issues even with ownership since a lot of the details aren't squared away. For example, you own a section of a river. You fish in it, maybe you use it to water your crops, etc... Now a neighbor upstream decides to pollute the water. This damages your property. So far the process is fairly obvious- it would be most likely that social norms dictate that polluting a water stream and having that pollution run off onto another's property would be damaging that property.

But suppose he decided to build a dam and keep water from coming onto your land. Do you have a right to have a certain amount of water come onto your land? If there was a drought and the river dried up, certainly no one is to blame. So it comes down to social norms. Perhaps that would say that you would be entitled to some percentage of the water that enters his property. Or perhaps it's between the two of you to work this out, where you pay him for rights, and he pays his neighbor for rights. There are infinite other possible systems that could develop that show what you are entitled to. I couldn't tell you which is the most likely to happen, but they are two possible ideas on how it might work out. What would be the case is that some condition would be owned and changes to that condition would likely be treated as damaging the property. I would venture that in places where it isn't an issue (plenty of water), there wouldn't be the need to monitor exactly how much is flowing between land, and only pollution would be an issue. In areas where water is scarce, water rights would be negotiated and you would pay your neighbor upstream for water rights, and charge your neighbor downstream for letting water pass through. This would allow for a more optimal usage of the water in drought conditions.

maybe we'll all learn something

How is it different than today? Why doesn't Wal-Mart do this now?

But what about the spiders? Do black widows really hold their value well?

How quickly would society change in reaction to changing social norms? For instance, now with government there are out dated social norms that are still being imposed by government. Gay marriage and marijuana for instance.

Ok. I'm not sure how much you've studied this, but in many (most?) cases there is a complex relationship between groundwater and surface water sources such that distinct boundaries between the sources would be impossible to determine. Further still, many sources of water aren't excludable and thus become virtually impossible to claim ownership over. For instance, with the aquifer in Florida we can literally poke holes in the ground virtually anywhere in the state and draw water out of it. This seems great at first until you get to the point where people are drawing so much water from the ground that it begins to adversely effect all the lakes and streams across the state that are connected to the aquifer. To further complicate matters, as wetlands and other vital recharge areas for the aquifer get developed or degraded by nearby developments the ability of the aquifer to recharge itself is hindered. This is just one example of how complex a resource water can be when you start to consider private ownership in a world without central authorities.

they have to answer to an entity other than the customer. an entity which is sovereign and held (only somewhat, no doubt) accountable by the public. an entity that arbitrates disputes between various actors in the economy. we call it

Yes but not to the U.S. state.
So the situation is have no bearing on the AC-US.

As horrible a job as it seems the government is doing wrt management of water resources, I posit that it only appears that way due to the complex nature of the resource and that without the existence of relatively central bodies of authority to manage disputes that arise and the activities of people who use the water the situation would be much much worse. You may find reading about the Tri-state water wars to see how complex and contentious water disputes can get even when you have a relatively small number of parties trying to come to an agreement.

im not sure what you mean

They are not killing off the natives because it against the laws of Guatemala.
The internal rule in U.S. be it a State or A.C. have nothing to do with it.

lol... so you're saying AC in the US, but states everywhere else to take care of the problems caused by AC in the US?

And there's no reason that the state is the only way for this to happen.


To be fair, the US might ban companies that do horrible things in other countries. However, the government does this not out of being kindhearted but because a lot of people want this. So I would expect a widespread boycott in a situation, although some people might cheat. Whether or not people decide to "punish" those who do business with them is another issue, but the more horrible the nature of their "crimes", the more likely it is someone boycotts.

It's definitely a complex problem, but simple ownership and social norms can go a long way. If someone actually owns the water, then they can ration it more effectively based on how people actually need it. However, due to the nature of not wanting to invest in an area without securing long-term rights, I would expect long term agreements to come up. But you are right it's a complex issue and it would be silly to assume that I would come up with the best solution, but simply a couple of ideas that might be used in some form with more intricate details worked out by the parties involved and people with expertise. When there is an incentive to resolve a dispute and mechanisms for doing so that are cheap, a problem is more likely to be resolved peacefully and in everyone's best interests.

In a very simple scenario it may be easy to prove who is polluting the water, but on a large river, like the Colorado or the Mississippi, this becomes very very difficult for certain types of pollution (i.e. non-point-source pollution). As it stands we have government agencies charged with monitoring pollution and where it's coming from. This is very expensive and we still haven't gotten to the point of precision with our models that we could pinpoint pollution coming from a specific land owner. One obvious issue an AC society would have is that there is little to no incentive to fund the kind of research it takes to figure these things out. In fact, there is very strong incentive for the people who are responsible for the pollution to prevent this research. The main polluters (farmers other industry) also tend to be the most wealthy ones as well.