Privateers and pirates

As I ponder the malevolent machinations of my own employer, I went to see the latest in a series of liberal documentaries to emerge from the States: The Corporation. This film has a pretty powerful anti-capitalist manifesto that exposes the evils corporations do and how they get away with, but is so long that you forget what's been said within half an hour. My most enduring memory of the film is the back pain from very uncomrtable chairs.
One of the more striking tales was of water privatisation in Bolivia where the people finally revolted and renationalised these services through a militant struggle, having to overcome armed riot police to have the water they needed to drink. This was contrasted with corporate representatives selling air pollution licenses as commodities so that not only water but air is privatised in North America. Where do you draw the line?
While it's clear (to me at least) that depriving people of water or health because they don't have the money to pay for it is morally reprehensible, it's not clear why people should be allowed to make a profit out of food. If the air should be state-owned and provided for common good, why not not land? The problem is that our notion of democracy has become synonymous with aspiration: it's no longer about having basic liberties but about being able to own things and make as much profit as anyone else. And while our corporate media continues to tell us that communism has failed, show me a place where capitalism has worked and where no one has been disenfranchised.