I often see quotes about rights which make this assumption.

You have the right to produce goods and the production of those goods may create pollution. I, on the other hand, have the right to breathe clean air. These conflicts are resolved by creating rules and regulations with respect to such pollution.


If you think rights are conflicting then something you are calling a right is not a right. I do not have right to pollute other people’s air. There is no conflict here. When I pollute your property without your permission, I am no longer peacefully pursuing my livelihood. I have initiated force and you have a right to seek injunctive relief through an appropriate court or mediator. In my area an injunction costs about $200.

Imagine going to a lender in a libertarian world to get financing for a duck farm. One thing the lender will want to see is permission from people in adjacent areas allowing you to pollute them with an offensive smell or a large enough piece of land that will contain the smell. Without this permission you will not get financing or insurance.

Over time, successful high polluting industries would tend to group together. They would tend to avoid areas where they might need to shut down occasionally. They would tend to locate far downstream (and downwind) of residential and less polluting industries. It would be more profitable to locate in areas which allow their particular pollution. There would be voluntary zones of heavy, light, and no pollution.

Government regulation of pollution often increases pollution. It enables industry to pollute by streamlining the permission gathering process. It requires additional regulation to isolate polluting industry away from others. It wastes resources enforcing laws on industries which might have voluntarily done their own policing. It severely limits competition of pollution limiting industries by enforcing a minimum standard on pollution control. It tends to position pollution control with parties which have less interest in controlling pollution.

Pollution control laws insulate industry from the price system and fuel the need for additional regulation to create the same effects which would have been created without that insulation.