Controlling water supplies enables control over the people who depend on them

Evidence

“Privatization is very important because the water is more important than the gold now,” says [Gonzalo] Ugalde. “The gold is for a few people, but the water is for all people, all around the world. If you obtain control of the water, you can obtain control of the people.” — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1527

Categorization

• CANDY: A punchy, quotable line about water as the new strategic resource — an elevator-conversation fact about why privatization matters.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the trees-as-infrastructure essay frame about commons resources as underused infrastructure, but more directly to water commons as contested resource.
• XREF: connects to: Corporate privatization of water and seeds erodes local communities’ decision-making power — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 223; Efficient power governs by pleasing and making people dependent, not by forbidding — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 45; Knowledge of colonized peoples produces power to control them (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Efficient power governs by pleasing and making people dependent, not by forbidding #expands (0.78) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 45
• A power chain requires controlling another’s exercise of power, not just their actions. #expands (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 655
• Knowledge of colonized peoples produces power to control them #expands (0.72)
• Administered needs cause individuals to identify with and submit to domination #expands (0.72) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 39
• Affect binds individuals to the power that subjects them. #expands (0.72) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 1153