Speaker For The Diodes - June 25th, 2010

This prompted me to ask -- shouldn't Libertarians be in favor of suing the #$@! out of BP? In Libertarian theory, the fear of such private actions under traditional common law theories of nuisance and strict liability is what replaces regulation as the incentive to behave. Indeed, isn't the problem that the federal government may let BP off too lightly by allowing a captured federal government to abrogate or limit private claims?

I've noticed that a lot of libertarians favor tort "reform", which also would seem to run contrary to a desire to replace government regulatory power with liability suits.

Or rather, the two ideas run contrary to each other if one's goal is to have a just society in which the criminally irresponsible are held accountable in some way for their crimes.

If, instead, one's goal is the establishment of a pseudo-feudal corporatocracy where the wealthy and powerful can do whatever they wish with no threat of punishment, well, then those two ideas go hand-in-glove.