The privatization of water and the struggle for the commons:

translocal resistance and the right to water from the experience of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2025/92001

The commodification of natural resources is not new to capitalism, but it is striking in terms of the intensity and dynamics with which it is currently occurring. The phenomenon is broad and complex and does not only involve the dispute between the center and the periphery of the State system, but, from a capitalist and internationalist core, it also affects the populations of the great powers. However, this does not occur without resistance, and instead fosters movements that go beyond local, regional, and national borders. This shows that capital, in its incessant expansion, seeks to go beyond possible borders and limits. An emblematic case is the privatization of drinking water in Pittsburgh, in the United States, which between 2017 and 2021, gave rise to important mobilizations and social movement organization focused on the right to water, in defense of it as a common public good. Based on Pachukanis' theory of the commodity form, the experience of the United States city will be discussed in its particularities, in order to relate them to the struggles around the world in the critique of capitalism, demanding translocal activism and the right to essential common goods, such as water. Thus, the aim is to point out how the conflict between the expansion of capital and the opposing social struggles unfolds.