The Last Drop: The Politics of Water

Indispensable for human existence yet increasingly owned and controlled by private capital; the last decade has witnessed an intensifying battle for water. The exploding profits of the multinational companies which dominate the water industry are testimony to how high the stakes are - by 2012 it had become a worth a trillion dollars. The Last Drop traces a path through the complex arguments that surround the question of water, setting out to make the technical and scientific arguments more accessible and the political questions more urgent.Against the market fundamentalists, Mike Gonzalez and Marianella Yanes argue that it is both possible and necessary that considerations of equity and social justice prevail in the debates around water. They call for our water supply to be saved from subordination to the whims of the multinationals and placed under direct democratic public control. This book will be a vital resource for water activists and a wake-up call to everyone who takes for granted what comes out of their kitchen tap.

Table of Contents:
ContentsIntroduction1: A Floating Planet2: Privatisation And The Perrier `Revolution'3: Disasters, Natural And Otherwise4: A Short Trip On The Amazon5: Bitter Harvests6: Virtual Water7: Water And Global Warming8: Ya Basta! Enough Is Enough9: What Is To Be Done?10: A New World Water OrderBibliographyIndex

About the Author :
Mike Gonzalez is Emeritus Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is the co-editor of Arms and the People (Pluto, 2012) and author of Hugo Chavez: Socialist for the Twenty-first Century (Pluto, 2014) Marianella Yanes is a Venezuelan journalist and writer for television and film. Until January 2009 she worked for the Venezuelan State Oil Corporation (PDVSA) as a journalist and documentary maker.

Review :
'Seminal' -- LSE Review of Books Water is a resource that belongs to all of us, and in this perceptive yet accessible book Mike Gonzalez takes issue with the way global capitalism has redefined water as a commodity, and depicts the bitter harvest that has resulted from water privatisation. -- Richard Boyd Barrett T.D. (Member of Irish Parliament) Gonzalez and Yanes have produced a definitive analysis of the current world water challenge. This book details how the 'modern' world has created a shortage unprecedented in human history while separating the popular theme of domestic consumption from the true water consumers: the corporations. To understand the "crisis of governance" that has changed water as a human right to a profitable commodity for financial interests, you must read The Last Drop. -- Marcela Olivera is the coordinator of the Red VIDA, an Inter-American water justice network. In this sobering account of hydro-politics, Gonzalez and Yanes remind us that human greed - not environmental inadequacy - lies at the heart of the global water 'crisis'. The authors call for a 'New International Water Order', born out of the needs and realties of ordinary people. This book is a must-read for all those wishing to end corporate control of everyday life. -- Dr Marcelle Dawson, Senior Lecturer in Sociology (University of Otago, New Zealand) and Vice-President, Research Committee 47 (Social Classes and Social Movements), International Sociological Association. Books like this are rare. Eloquent, poetic, enraged, committed, Marxist, environmentalist, written from the Global South, a book full of the fire and feeling of the Latin American social movements. The authors are activists, so they love the Earth, hate capitalist inequality, and write in hope. -- Jonathan Neale, author of Stop Global Warming, Change the World Seminal