> I can never understand why dumping pollution into the atmosphere and making other people bear the costs is categorized under "capitalism" and "free market," w

> I can never understand why dumping pollution into the atmosphere and making other people bear the costs is categorized under "capitalism" and "free market," while making people actually pay for the costs they impose on others through pollution is considered "redistribution" and "communism." Your confusion is well founded. It is actually the other way around. Privatizing externalities (the environmental costs) is honestly a well-respected market-based mechanism to solve problems that fall under the Tragedy of the Commons category, as is the case here. So it is arguably absolutely "capitalist," and "free market." It has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with using free market mechanisms. If you're interested in related reading, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax Socializing the costs (which means to redistribute ownership to society) is arguably more consistently "communist." Communism is a really bloated term, economic ideology, in which the economy does not rely on markets, but on socialization of capital and production, arguably more accurately describes a situation where we socialize a cost to society.