Polluters put their personal comfort and immediate convenience ahead of the long-term health and safety of their community. Polluters do not mind taking what is not theirs. There are legitimate limits to everything. Moral capitalism recognizes that profits are not the ultimate goal of human existence. If laissez faire does not extend to purse snatching or drug dealing then it does not protect the wanton destruction of our environment.
Pollution is theft, and theft is a moral problem.
It is not then difficult to see that the greatest threat to the long-run heath of our environment is not big business or profits or technology, but rather it is the increasing moral illiteracy of individual decision makers great and small. Unfortunately, men are not angels. Even the best curriculum of moral education will not convince everyone to temper their acts of greed and selfishness. For such as these, governments have properly been established to regulate, to intervene, and to punish the violator, in order that a peaceful social order and a healthy environment may be preserved. As long as voluntary compliance is the rule, and criminal disregard the exception, we can achieve our national environmental goals.