Can laissez-faire capitalism protect the environment?
In a word, no. Here we explain why using as our example the arguments of a leading right-“libertarian.” As discussed in the last section, there is plenty of reason to doubt the claim that private property is the best means available to protect the environment. Even in its own terms, it does not do so and this is compounded once we factor in aspects of any real capitalist system which are habitually ignored by supporters of that system (most obviously, economic power derived from inequalities of wealth and income). Rather than the problem being too little private property, our environmental problems have their source not in a failure to apply market principles rigorously enough, but in their very spread into more and more aspects of our lives and across the world. That capitalism simply cannot have an ecological nature can be seen from the work of right-“libertarian” Murray Rothbard, an advocate of extreme laissez-faire capitalism. His position is similar to that of other free market en
