Water, oil, food--will humankind cooperate together or fight to the death?

I saw this headline last evening and it rather concerns me:

Global Fight for Natural Resources 'Has Only Just Begun,' say Experts

From the article:

"Better economic incentives, rather than ethical considerations and appeals to human morality, are needed to encourage investment in a more sustainable economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen.

Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen told the conference that governments would need to step in, to ensure resources were best distributed.

Speaking at the Re|source 2012 Conference in Oxford, Sen said that so-called 'free markets' could not be counted on to meet all fundamental human needs nor could the private sector be trusted to efficiently allocate the world's natural resources.

“The way to make the financial sector respond is not through moral exhortation, but by increasing incentives,” said Sen. 'The market will respond to price increases,' but world governments are required to intervene and address 'inequality and iniquity' that the market inherently generates."

The way our Capitalism is set up and the way the Republican Party, the Libertarians and far too many Right Wingers and Americans in general see the world and the world economy at present, they wouldn't get this.

Far too many of us wouldn't understand, at least at present, that whether you're talking about water or oil or corn or virtually any other commodity, once there are shortages, the item in concern can't be left to "free markets" alone unless we are willing to literally let people go without and that can, in fact, mean going without food.

Morally, we just can't let it end up being "every man--person--for themselves." We can't.

Besides being immoral, it would inevitably mean the deaths of at least thousands of us, if not millions, nation- and world-wide.

Surely we owe our fellow human beings more than that.

Rather naturally, it reminded me of this quote from the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr:

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

And the thing is, we'll have to agree to that cooperation across all nations, worldwide.

This will not be easy, ladies and gentlemen.

Link to original article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/12-5