Because the people with the most money (golf courses) and the people with the most legitimate need for water (thirst) are not the same people.
Many Americans have this bizarre fixation on the idea that markets are magic and freedom means that whoever has the most money gets whatever they want. Sorry but that is an incredibly cruel and inefficient way to make decisions.
The system of free market pricing has always been a more efficient and effective way to distribute scarce goods to where they are most needed.
The system of rationing has never produced fair or efficient results. If you disagree, present a system where rationing has done otherwise. Certainly, that has never worked for water distribution.
I mean that's the most obvious example. But really, this is a commonplace and standard practice- get out a cake at a birthday party and how are you going to divide it? Richest family gets the most cake?
This is a bad question to be honest, possibly asked in bad faith.
Talk to someone who lived through WW2 rationing (I have). (Sadly, they're pretty much all gone now.)
Let's take WW2 gas rationing. People were allocated gas based on their profession. Note that this had NOTHING to do with their needs. So what happened? Nobody had an allocation that matched their need, it was either too much or too little. So what happened? An illegal black market emerged where those with extra sold it to those with less (at high prices, as illegal markets always carry a price premium).
Let's take your birthday cake example. It has the same assumption built in - that everybody wants exactly the same amount of cake. This is never the reality, and forcing it on people results in inefficient mis-allocation, and people who want more saying "hey, are you going to finish yours? Can I have it?".
> possibly asked in bad faith
You might want to read up on the history of the results of rationing before you draw such conclusions.
This recent spike in has prices left a lot of people without. It distributed gas to the people who could afford it, not to the people who needed it, no?
I would rather accept the wisdom of the cruel and inefficient markets, in which literally the whole world has input in some fashion, over the edicts issued by a local board of the well-connected and appointed.
No, the world's people are not what has the input- the world's money does. Very different. Money does not think or feel, it's just a measure of power. Money is power. If you think money should purely decide this question you are in effect saying "whoever is the most powerful gets what they want", which is anti-civilization. Markets only function at all because powerful governments moderate and regulate them. Otherwise the world would quickly decay into a hobbsian war of all against all. Unregulated markets always self-destruct. Rationing on one level or another is the only reason that markets in limited areas are even possible. Try having markets without "rationing" who can print money, for example.
Bullshit. Outside of temporary supply disruptions (such as in natural disasters), rationing has always been a total failure. Central planners are incapable of efficiently allocating resources, and most of the participants end up cheating through a secondary black market.
And anyone is free to print unlimited quantities of their own private currency. This is completely legal. But no one else is obligated to accept it.
Money deflates so the wealthy need to pursue valuable investments to preserve and grow it. Value is generally produced by doing things that people will pay for. It is this value-seeking behavior by the masses that gives everyone some implicit input on the long horizon. And water is certainly a long horizon thing.
Many Americans have this bizarre fixation on the idea that markets are magic and freedom means that whoever has the most money gets whatever they want. Sorry but that is an incredibly cruel and inefficient way to make decisions.