re: #131 wheat-dogghazi

There was a time in the earliest days of railroading when different (privately built) systems had different gauges. Similarly, there were competing electrical systems, different equipment designs, etc., as a result of competing privately built systems, before we eventually settled on 110VAC 60Hz for residential use.

There are no compelling market-based reasons for two or more private providers of utilities to cooperate on setting standards for interoperability, because each provider imagines it will be the top dog. (See which, Edison vs. Westinghouse). Government has to step in and make sense of the mess. Libertarians don’t get this at all.

Building out the federal interstate system, or the transcontinental railroad would not have happened without government assistance and intervention. Left to corporations, both would have taken much much longer to accomplish than they did.

The mighty railroads were built using cheap Chinese labor, much like today.