Farmers were granted fantastically huge water rights a long time ago. Before society understood any reasonable idea of necessity.
Many people seem to want to argue that, if society wants water, it should negotiate whatever rate it can to buy back water rights from the descendants of those who were bequeathed colossal, perpetual rights to water.
I personally think some collectivism is necessary & warranted. We are facing true cataclysm. To mediate this exchange via capitalism, to tell society that some ridiculous grant made long long long ago, at no cost, must be upheld, is to me to spit in the face of society. It is injust & tyrannical. We must live in a more open society that can renew it's law, that can re-establish basis, where the future is not pre-determined by some ancient sale.
I see similar challenges afoot with, for example, FCC's spectrum auction bonanzas. FCC has proudly announced early this year that they've sold $81B in licenses in the 3.7 GHz area. My understanding is that, like water rights, we are seemingly divying up our limited natural resources today in perpetuity (did some digging; sort of true: 15 year license with expectation of a seemingly non-competitive renewal process), granting gigantic mega-corporations colossal fantastically huge troves of resources that they can use for lifetimes and lifetimes and lifetimes. Kings have been decided: farmers, wireless carriers: the future has been sold off to one time bidders, to whomever was around back then.
Everything about these things stinks to high heavens. This is not decent or correct. This is tyranny. This is illegitimate.
This atemporal form of decision making, this anti-future decision making basis, must never ever be permitted. Sustainability (admit ongoing shifts in context), ongoing cost, an ability for new entrants to begin, to compete, having an ability to purchase fairly & not from those who already hold all the rights, must be established. It is necessary for society to not have stale, ossified systems of power that we are stuck with, that own the water, that own the air, that own all the systems about us. Society must be more open than that. To simply say it is a necessity to be more resourceful is not sufficient: there must be ongoing cause for renewal, for reassessment. When we make a sale of resources, once, for perpetuity, that party holds all the power, they have all the bargaining rights to make as much profit as they might dream by holding that limited resource tight until finally they favor change. This is tyranny. This is ill governance. This is against society. By necessity, we may not permit such forms of governance, such vile deal makings as this.
There must be some way to acknowledge the evident necessity we find ourselves in. Presently it feels like there is nothing to correct the situation. Entitlement rules the land.
