Should Water be Privatized?

The debate about how clean drinking water should be allocated is contentious. There are some who believe the free market could do the job better than the government. Clean drinking water is mostly managed by local governments in the United States, but there have been some cities that have tried water privatization. Subscribers to austrian and conservative economic theory would argue that the market will improve the efficiency of the water system. 

In my opinion, water privatization is an awful idea. Water is vital to human survival and it is asinine to think that prices wouldn't increase dramatically because of the switch to privatization. The increase in price would no doubt leave poor people out of the marketplace. If water is privatized, it will lead to drastic consequences such as the misallocation of water to people who can afford it, while others are left with less. The profit motive it obviously there for any private company that would invest in a water system. They need to make a return off of that investment.  The basic necessity to human life should not be at the whim of the market.

Water resides in a grey area when in comes to labeling the type of good it is. It could either be public or common pool. Water could be rival because consumption of that water means another cannot drink it, but they could once it goes through the water cycle. Either way, water should not be part of the free market. Leaving clean drinking water up to the free market could lead more problems than we had in the first place, including a shortage of water for poor people.