Let’s take a moment and exaggerate, a little, the possible effects of unlimited corporate involvement in U.S.-style democracy. We could have the war industry buying presidents and launching us into illegal wars. We could have the bottled-water industry buying senators and pushing for weakened water standards so that our rivers, streams and even tap water is poisoned and we’re forced to buy purified water. We could have a private prison industry buying hard-liner law-and-order candidates that push for more and more prisoners and hence, more and more prisons.
Oh, wait, we were going to exaggerate.
Seriously, where I live in Guadalajara, Mexico, a fair city of about 4 million, we all buy our water from Coke. Three times a week I walk to the corner store and fork over $2 for a 20-liter jug that allows me to safely wash my mushrooms, make my tea and hallucinate. In a very unscientific survey of some friends, we determined that we average about $5 each per week for water. Each year, in this city, we spend about $1 billion just for water.
Surely for that same amount of money over a period of 30 years we could treat the local waterways, regulate pollution and fix the infrastructure. But no, instead, because of corporate governance in the world today, Coke gets $1B a year. That’s slightly more money than Haiti’s entire national debt — which ironically at this moment the world is debating whether or not to forgive.
Now imagine, if you will, your own fair city. Corporate cronies from marketing to distribution are currently dreaming up schemes of how to get you to be like us and buy your water in little jugs. It’s good for business. After all, bottled water has been one of the fastest growing new segments of the U.S. economy for more than a decade now. Investors are counting on us.
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2010.