Capitalism and Railroads

I am thinking that capitalism and railroads go hand in hand. Capitalism builds them.

Some will argue not so, pointing to the state owned railways throughout Europe and Asia. For instance, they will continue, look at China where it has been the state that's been responsible for building and running its railway network, which is the envy of the world. Capitalism didn't build that. Furthermore, look at the railway system the Japanese state built before that, starting the high-speed passenger train revolution that is occurring around the world.

True, true I'll say. But, I'll add, these state systems were built with an eye on facilitating capitalism. And in the long it is capitalism that will sustain them. Moreover, capitalism has been behind the scenes in building them. The spirit of capitalism and its free markets is what made possible the ingenuity and production that made railways possible. For instance, the first railway wasn't built by the state. It was conceived and built by a collection of entrepreneurs. It was later, in many cases, that the state took them over in order to make the railway networks more cohesive and less chaotic. The state also got involved because often railway companies overbuilt and went bankrupt, creating unruly situations.

It is in America where capitalism and railroading were really joined at the hip. It was capital and the free market system that built the railroads that connected America. But even there, some will argue, the transcontinental railroad couldn't have been built without government help. The government facilitated the building of the railroad. It assembled the land the railroads build on. Nevertheless, it was the railroad companies in the first place that gathered the resources and knowhow to build and manage them.

The capital and financing to built the high-speed railway network in authoritarian China came from the exploitation of capitalism, from China selling manufactured goods to the rest of the world and profiting from it. With the surplus capital China made from exploiting capitalism it was able to afford a fantastic high-speed railway system. And in order to sustain and maintain it China will have to continue to expand on capitalistism, an economic system it once reviled.