: There's nothing profitable, either in the short-term or the long-term, in poisoning a water hole IN a free market.
What nonsense. I suppose there's nothing 'profitable' in commiting genocide either. But that didn't stop Belgian capitalists from killing ten million Congolese, did it? Nor did it stop businessmen, rachenrs and rubber companies from killing off 84% of the Brazilian Indians.
Georges Bank Fishery was run into the ground by overfishing by PRIVATE fishermen. Which would explain why cod's suddenly become so expensive. The same thing is happening today with the swordfish. One thing's for certain, leave a resource open to private capitalist exploitation, and it'sll be gone in the blink of an eye.
: A publicly-owned water-hole, on the other hand, since it belongs to everybody, belongs to nobody and therefore can often be poisoned without recriminations.
Yes, so that would explain why those societies which lived in a sustainable manner with their envoronment (Pygmies, San, etc) invariably showed COMMUNAL ownership and usage of the land.
:If the market in water-holes were free, rather than constrained by social government ownership of the water-holes, they would be privately owned and better taken care of.
Fantasy, illusion, nonsense.
