I do have a problem with people who tell me not to walk on their driveway–if I’m not being a problem, I think they’re just being overly paranoid. But I respect their right to do so…
You realize, don’t you, that during most of the 19th century, railroads (and the thin strips of land they sat on) were owned by the companies that built them? If you wanted to drive your locomotive on their train tracks, you had to get their permission – which usually meant you had to pay them for the privilege or go find another set of tracks to run your trains on.
If I somehow managed to buy the one road leading into and out of a particular area, I guarantee you that the residents and business owners in that area would come up with some way to build another road real fast.
Actually they wouldn’t. In many cases, the railroads were granted very large tracts of land along their line–as part of the incentive to develope the area. So they literally owned many towns, and you can bet they wouldn’t let competetion in. It should be remembered that a lot of the early anti-monopoly action was taken against the railroads…
Also, where on earth were a bunch of farmers going to scare up the money to build their own railroad, even if they could. The unfair business practices of rail owners are a large part of why we have anti-trust laws today…
Plus, America is already rather overdevelopped, IMHO. Do you want more roads?
The build another road idea sounds great in a vaccuum. Hey, it worked for railroads a century ago, it must be a good idea, right?
Applying that solution to real world situations, though, shows some problems almost immediately: what about congested metropolitan areas? what about isolated communities with limited access? If someone buys the last bridge into Key West those folks are now at the mercy of a monopoly. If someone cuts off a block of downtown Chicago, where are the residents going to build another road?
As to pedestrian access. It is certainly possible that a private owner would allow people to walk upon his thoroughfare for free. Of course, such aproval would increase potential liability to the owner if a pedestrian were injured/killed while on his property. hmmmm, increased risk, little or no fiduciary benefit, why would anyone imagine that a private owner might not weigh those options and refuse passage to pedestrians. Why, it would take a hardened cynic to take such a calloused view of philanthropic business owners. Especially after the example of the early railroad barons has been raised.
Just going to add some cites, here:
Northern Securities Company v. United States
1
Northern Pacific Railway v. United States (same site)
One more, from here
Nuff said?
Yes, plenty.
You showed vividly how government submarines an economy by partnering with select businesses to grant them special permissions and privileges. In a noncoercive free-market, you can’t just take land and resources that you want — you need Senator Fatcat to help you with that.
Umm, you see, the government partnered with a business, granting it a virtual monopoly, ** but ** regulating it heavily. That business would be Amtrak (for passenger fare, anyway). Seems to me like the aforementioned examples were all privately owned competing businesses that made life miserable for everybody by working together as one organization. BTW, did I mention that competitors (e.g. owners of various roads) talking about pricing in any way is illegal? Many companies have been busted on this. So if the road owners try to issue a single pass to drive on all of them…BAM! Anti-trust lawsuit, here they come.
You are right that privatizing the roads in the US would be a bad idea under the current government. As you pointed out in the railroad quotes, when the government is deeply involved with private industry in a vital market, bad things are going to result. Private roads would only work under a much more libertarian government. If the Libertarians ever get their way, anti-monopoly laws will be one of the first things to go.
In looking over your quotes, I also fail to see any indication that life was miserable for everyone. You do point out the existence of monopolies, but don’t actually show how anything bad happened as a result.
> The government answers directly to me.
That’s funny!
If Peter McWilliams is the same guy I’m thinking of, I’m truly sorry to hear of his death. He wrote a number of pretty decent books, which I didn’t always agree with, but enjoyed. I think he would have been amused by the Onion parody.
Myrr21 wrote:
Overdeveloped? Why, practically the whole Pacific Northwest still has trees and grass on it!
I say we’re not done developing until the Earth looks like Coruscant from Star Wars Episode 1.
The quotes were simply to point out that these things were acting as monopolies, under a thin veil of “free-market competition”. If the Libertarians want to do away with anti-trust laws, I think I shall shoot myself in the head before I ever vote Lib. Althouhg, I did sign to get them on the ballot in MD a few years back–they have the right to fail miserably on their own merits, not because they were kept out of the election 
Anyway, if you do a little research–I can do it too, but I’m feeling lazy right now–you will find that said railroad monopolies heavily punished small farmers in certain areas, and charged a different per mile fee depending on how much they felt your business was worth to them, or which moon of Jupiter was in alignment with Virgo, or whatever. So if they just didn’t like you, well, too bad guy.
Actually, my post points out just the opposite–companies left unchecked become repressive. The government involvement here was to break them up and regulate them so that they had to behave in a just manner.