Managing the Poor by Remote Control: Johannesburg’s Experiments with Prepaid Water Meters

Since 1994 much has changed in the forms of administering municipal services to the black townships of South Africa. Commercialization and prepaid meters (PPMs) in particular are changing the relationships between consumers and the state. In Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, a new politics of consumption is arising based on the idea that market relationships embodied in prepayment for services are empowering and educating poor consumers into modern forms of rationality. This chapter seeks to vigorously rebut this conception of water service delivery.