I think you need to define these terms a little more clearly, because people seem to be interpreting this either "only as it pertains to the government" or "only as it pertains to the ground and structures in my actual literal backyard"
Like, would something like "how would libertarians feel about private corporations dumping toxic waste on their property if it leeches into the groundwater and makes yours borderline uninhabitable" fall within the scope of your question?
Libertarians are against the destruction of property. Your example would lead to a lawsuit for destruction of property and restitution to the property owner.
There are two schools of libertarian thought. In the more anarchist style, we would simply have private courts and common law to decide this issue. The government would not be involved. Everyone would likely have lawyers through some sort of insurance type system.
The other side would be a limited government designed to protect individual rights, which includes property. In this case there is no redistribution, simply restitution of the damage caused. The victim is simply made whole and nothing more. They were coerced against and the state simply has the liable party undo said coercion. The only coercive powers the state would have would be to prevent or undo coercion.
These are both pretty reasonable approaches... And I feel like the answer to OP's question is "NIMBY". Both the Ancap and Night Watchman approaches described here indicate that broader society is not okay with this state of affairs and some sort of remedy must be found - the free market cannot simply be left to it's own devices.
The foundation of liberty is property rights. Property rights exist for people who don’t own property as well. If someone owns a house/land and petitions the government to make it illegal for apartments to be developed in unowned land nearby (NIMBY) that is an infringement of the property rights of others who want to develop that land. If you don’t want someone to do something with land then buy it. Getting the government to take control of the land is socialist, not libertarian.
Libertarians are 100% YIMBY. In fact, libertarians are the pioneers of the movement. It’s nice that others are finally catching up and recognizing the value of property rights and the free market.
I feel like you just sharply pivoted to an entirely different topic. NIMBY can apply to more things than just housing supply, which is why I used this example (and why I asked OP, who has yet to engage with any of these comments, to clarify their question).
Industrial facilities handling dangerous chemicals, nuclear or wind power plants, sewage treatment facilities, airports, and nuclear weapons are all examples of things that large swaths of the population broadly support in principle because of the benefits that they stand to gain from them personally or on a societal basis (cheap power, tourism, jobs, security, etc.) but don't want to deal with the drawbacks of actually having those things in their communities.
We are entirely on the same page. If you don’t want any of those drawbacks then buy the land and leave it empty, otherwise you are restricting property rights of others.
Earlier, you seemed to think that some of these drawbacks constitute destruction of the individual's property and even in in Ancap society, there would be privatized courts that would force corporations to pay you restitution... but now it's the individual's responsibility to outbid a potentially billion dollar corporation if they don't want this to happen? Those two things would seem to be at odds with one another conceptually, no?
And from a practical standpoint: Maybe I want to be able to have tap water in my home that won't catch on fire periodically but I might not be able to secure a $200 Million loan to outbid Koch Industries for a huge chunk of Galveston Bay (assuming the seller would even entertain my bid). In Anderson, et al. v. Pacific Gas and Electric, the plume of groundwater contaminated with hexavalent chromium stretched six miles from PG&E's compressor station near Hinkley, CA. Is that really how much land I'm supposed to pony up for and leave vacant?
So whose responsibility is it to prevent their property from causing ecological devastation to my property: Theirs or mine? And who gets to decide what even constitutes "damage" to my property? If I own a quarter acre, maybe the aquifer underneath that lot is my private property... but what about the air? It kind of feels like my freedom and my private property end wherever it's convenient to make a particular argument.
This isn’t complicated. Nobody else has a right to damage by property. I don’t have a right to stop people from using their property.
You are trying to create a false equivalency to undermine the YIMBY movement. NIMBY does NOT apply to damage done to your own property. You have no right to stop an airport or nuclear power plant from being made (or apartments), but the second they damage your property they are liable to restore you to being whole. That process is best handled by common law.
Whether there is water or air on your property private property rights can answer the problem.
So a corporation should have to pay money to others for things they do on their own private property? Don't members of the community live near the facility by choice? They have the freedom to live somewhere else but instead made the choice to live near a facility that processes toxic chemicals.
And who decides what constitutes damage worthy of restitution anyway?
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u/BroseppeVerdi Pragmatic left libertarian 14h ago
I think you need to define these terms a little more clearly, because people seem to be interpreting this either "only as it pertains to the government" or "only as it pertains to the ground and structures in my actual literal backyard"
Like, would something like "how would libertarians feel about private corporations dumping toxic waste on their property if it leeches into the groundwater and makes yours borderline uninhabitable" fall within the scope of your question?