Question:

In a libertarian society, wouldn’t polluters get away with destroying the environment?

Answer:

Today, the biggest polluter of all — the U.S. military — gets away with murder — literally. When courts found the military liable for illness and death after careless nuclear testing in Utah, the government claimed sovereign immunity and refused to pay damages. In a libertarian society, no one would be immune from the consequences of their actions — especially not a government charged with protecting us.

Libertarians believe that people and governments should right their wrongs by restoring, as much as possible, what they’ve damaged. Today, instead of making polluters pay, our government makes the taxpayers shoulder the burden. Sometimes it requires whoever buys a polluted property to bear the cost of the clean-up. If polluters don’t pay for the damage they do, why should they stop polluting?

Since government is the biggest polluter of all, putting government in charge of stopping pollution is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.