Was there ever any civilization or society where water...

Was there ever any civilization or society where water, fruits or some basic good like that was completely free for the people?

>inb4 natives or abbos
I mean in a developed context

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_rights
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All I know is that there was a crash course in history video that touched on this, and claimed that food and water found in nature was allowed to be eaten by whoever found it.

I'm pretty sure that's been the case in most societies. I mean it falls from the skies.

Rome had a public system of fountains, but if you wanted a private water supply to your house you had to pay extra, like a lot extra.

Water is "free" in most societies, no-one is stopping you drinking from lakes and rivers, you just don't because you don't want to die of easily preventable diseases, so you pay the nominal fee for the cleaned, processed, water that comes thru pipes.

What do you mean by free?
Ownership only exists within the context of society with an arbiter that decides how resources are divided between people in the first place.
Ownership means the government (the party with a monopoly on force) is willing to enforce a condition where you are free to do with something as you will.
Nobody can objectively own something; technically everything is free in that sense.

>What do you mean by free?

What do you think he means, retard?

>HURR u cant own the sky xD

Go test your theory that you can't own anything by helping yourself to whatever you want from the nearest store, you dopey prick.

Even in our privatized societies there are plenty of fruits and other edibles growing around on public land that you could just harvest if you bothered to. This was all the more true back in premodern times.

Never mind water: they used to tax river trade or got locals to contribute to build irrigation systems but other than that water bills are a modern invention.

Water bills aren't for water, they're for TREATED water. Those big treatment plants aren't free, neither are the miles upon miles of pipes that bring it to your house. Barring a few states in the US, it's perfectly legal to eschew treated water and collect your own rainwater, bill free.

>I mean it falls from the skies.
It's illegal in several American states to collect rain water.

Why

Retardation.

Which is a crime against nature.

if you're talking about potable water, rome until the empire fell, england up through the first world war, german from the unification until the second world war, and most rennaisance societies. Potable is much easier to achieve when you don't know about microbes

public wells provided clean water until the groundwater supplies in europe became mostly contaminated

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_rights
>In the western states, water supplies are very limited and must be allocated sparingly based on the productivity of its use.

There are few places with economies advanced enough, but that's the goal. Solve water, fruit, and basic goods, and focus human attention on higher problems. The last thing we should want is some kind of artificial scarcity to become an option.

private rain water collection doesn't drain local reservoirs, you're thinking of ground or river water collection

>private rain water collection doesn't drain local reservoirs

True

>you're thinking of ground or river water collection

Nope, collecting rainwater is unironically illegal in several states.

Air always has been free, you know
Anything else, if scarce and valuable, should not be free

>when you don't know if this reply is from an american, a retarded european, or a chink

Why not as cheap as possible though?

Capitalism ensures it is as cheap as possible.

If only. Cartels and monopolies are not a myth.

Neither of those is capitalism. Yes there are anti-capitalist pressures driving the cost up, but there is also capitalist pressures pushing it back down again. I mean assuming you live in a human-majority country and not some ghastly turd world shithole.

>there are people who unironically believe this

>there are """people""" who don't understand this incredibly simple and obvious fact

So you've pretty much defined capitalism as whenever capitalism is going well?

If there is no courts with common law or regulations, how can I make sure I won't be defrauded? And if there are, how can I make sure they aren't bribed to serve businesses that want to be in a cartel or monopoly situation?

>So you've pretty much defined capitalism as whenever capitalism is going well?

Capitalism: the private ownership of the means of production, or of natural resources.

>If there is no courts with common law or regulations, how can I make sure I won't be defrauded?

What does that have to do with capitalism? Also, how is that any less true under non-capitalist economic systems?

>And if there are, how can I make sure they aren't bribed to serve businesses that want to be in a cartel or monopoly situation?

What does that have to do with capitalism? Also, how is that any less true under non-capitalist economic systems?

>Capitalism: the private ownership of the means of production, or of natural resources.

And sometimes one person owns all of a resource that people need to live. It might not be capitalism to you once they have that monopoly, but it's capitalism all the way along.

>And sometimes one person owns all of a resource that people need to live.

Example of this happening?

>when you're fully sure this reply comes from some retard thinking about himself on a high horse
you don't have any way to disprove that claim: if it's scarce and is vital, then it's not possible that it should be free

>americans

Not that faggot but how could you possibly disagree? You honestly think scarce and essential resources should just be handed out free to whoever gets there first?

>water
>scarce

It literally costs like fifty cents to produce a thousand gallons of potable water.

Are you seriously claiming that there are no places on Earth were fresh water is scarce?

There are places on earth where oxygen is scarce.

I don't think that oxygen should be privatized either.

But if you went up to orbit, you'd expect to have to pay for the oxygen tanks you took with you, right? You wouldn't bitch like a little faggot U CANT OWN THE SKY and insist that you be provided with oxygen gratis, right?

You have to pay for water bottles if you're going out to the desert too.

Apples and oranges, famborghini.

I can objectively own something if I can exclude everybody else from it. With the exception of slaves, every person on this fucking planet owns their body, and all other forms of ownership extends from the work you put in when you mix in your labor [spoiler]the psuedo-resource your body creates and exclude from others[/spoiler] with the various resources in your environment to create something of value. The only time this has ever come into question and a resource or object of value has traded hands without a fair exchange is thru coercion, or the utilization of threat of physical force to gain something without offering something in return.

>Apples and oranges, famborghini.

It was YOUR example you fucking sack of shit.