I meant with regard to the fact that ability to pay determines whether you can buy something. Obviously everyone needs water to live, just as they need food, housing, transportation, recreation, sex and many other things to live which require you have something to trade.
Can you tell me a place where the free market rules where can't get the clean water you need to live for far less than an hour's worth of labor at the lowest paid job?
I can think of plenty where the use of force rules where its not even possible to get any clean water at all.
The UN's problem is hardly with countries where people are allowed to trade and keep what they earn.
The underlying problem with putting water on the world market is that the market value of your labor might be less than foreigners value the water you need to stay alive and fed and healthy. Strange that we don't view it as we do organ smuggling, because the moral calculus (others have the means and now the incentive to outbid you on your own continued survival) is almost the same.
Can you tell me a place where the free market rules where can't get the clean water you need to live for far less than an hour's worth of labor at the lowest paid job?
I can think of plenty where the use of force rules where its not even possible to get any clean water at all.
The UN's problem is hardly with countries where people are allowed to trade and keep what they earn.