In a community east of the Valley of Mexico, a group of comrades and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have organized with our neighbors to fight the water shortage that has affected our neighborhoods for years. Recently the shortage has worsened, due to the overexploitation of wells and the criminal negligence of the bosses who refuse to maintain the hydraulic network, instead favoring the business of selling bottled water or workers needing to pay for supply through pipes.

Capitalism is incapable of meeting workers’ basic needs, even access to clean water, that under this system becomes a commodity that you can only have access to if you can buy it. Under a system of social equality like communism, workers’ needs would be the top priority, as our collectively organized society will ensure access to healthy water for all.

Bosses monopolize water

The capitalist ruling class in Mexico has privileged the business of selling bottled water. The country ranks first place in the world in consumption of bottled water (and sweetened drinks) because only around 60 percent of homes have a reliable daily supply (El País, 9/8/2023). Additionally, the bosses prioritize the water supply for agricultural use, the brewing industry and mainly for agroindustry and industrial zones.

The Valley of Mexico, where 22 million people live, is supplied with water mainly extracted from wells (75 percent), which are overexploited and of poor quality (La Jornada, 4/1). The rest is brought from the Cutzamala system, which is at critical levels due to low rainfall, overexploitation and pollution of the basins.

Within the community in struggle, the neighbors first organized a protest to demand that water be supplied to the area's hydraulic network, but the municipal government responded that the pump to extract it is useless and it will take months to repair, so they offered to extend the water pipes to homes, free of charge.

While the authorities agreed to install enough pipes to supply each household with two thousand liters of water, the municipality only sent three to four water pipes which only supplies half of what they promised – an insufficient amount to provide water for the working class here.

Workers can and must take control 

In an example of how the working class can organize society collectively, neighbors formed brigades to direct the supply of water in pipes to the homes where it is needed most, those with children, elderly or workers with illnesses. Our comrades meet every week with neighbors to evaluate and organize actions and report on the problem. We have helped organize marches where chants like “Water is not for sale, it is cared for and defended” ring furiously in the streets. But capitalism, which makes everything about profit, can't help but exploit and destroy nature and put a price tag on it. 

In places like Ecatepec’s fifth district, a municipality in the state of Mexico, water comes from the Cutzamala system, a complex network of canals, tunnels, pipelines, pumping plants, dams, and reservoirs, yet around 90 percent of the water pipes have been privatized (Sin Embargo, 6/25/22).

The system has been overexploited as the local bosses smuggle the water out of the systems and resell it back to the working class for profit. The local authorities have exposed this criminal business, but are “powerless” to stop it.  Also, there are car assembly companies that, in collusion with the municipality, steal water that they pay an average of 1,500 pesos for when they should pay close to 2 million, due to their high consumption. This is another clear example that capitalism is based on corruption, violence and theft, above the needs of workers.

Smash capitalism to liberate resources

Our comrades have put forward the communist analysis of this water struggle in our community by showing that capitalism promotes companies to monopolize water and profit from the need for the vital resource, putting the health and lives of millions of workers and their families at risk. But at the same time, we show in practice that these problems must be faced through the fight against capitalism, a harmful and deadly system that needs to be overthrown, so the working class can organize and run a superior communist society.