[naive]

I don't inherently agree that private business providing water services is a bad thing. I just reworded the paper without changing the core. The businesses aren't really selling the water itself, they are providing water transportation services. It's really a matter of being a service, not an end product. In America, the government does control water supplies to a certain extent but there is still private business competing with them.

For example, sure you could just use city water and sewage, but these government operated systems are still competing with the private sector. If the government does a poor job of providing water, private industry can step in and drill wells and provide septic tanks. It forces the government to stay competitive, and many businesses are able to compete against each other when it comes to wells, septic, etc.

As for third world countries, there are many positives to allowing business to come in and fill the void left by governments. As long as the businesses are not profiting off of restricting water, but rather by providing the service of water transportation to locations that could not previously acquire it, the private sector could be a great place of growth for the economy by allowing people to live in regions previously inhospitable. You could argue that a properly managed sewage system would be far more beneficial to local health and the environment than not having one and having shit everywhere (literally).