Pavan’s Reviews > For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto > Status Update

Yet laissez-faire without rights is a contradiction in terms; the laissez-faire position is based on and derived from man’s rights, and can endure only when rights are held inviolable. Now, in an age of increasing awareness of the environment, this old contradiction is coming back to haunt capitalism.

The vital fact about air pollution is that the polluter sends unwanted and unbidden pollutants from smoke to nuclear radiation to sulphur oxides through the air and into the lungs of innocent victims as well as onto their material property. All such emanations which injure person or property constitute aggression against the private property of the victims.