[quote=CA renter]A lot of the money used for initial infrastructure costs came from foreign governments, and later, our own government.[/quote]A lot, but not all. Compared to the total, government contribution is small. There are many things that government can do better than individual companies. One of these is infrastructure. Because they are ‘government’, they can sweep through laws, deal with eminent domain, own most un-built land etc.
You also forgot all the small railroads that were built back east by private money, before the transcontentental rail, who were later swept under (in many cases losing all of their capital). You cherry picked an example.
PS: You might get a bit of a flame from flu on this, the West spur of the Transcontinental was largely built by Chinese laborers. The East branch was largely built by Black, Italian, Irish laborers.
PPS: I have done mountain Trail building with a Chinese mountain climbing group. Interesting to say the least, and it showed me why the Chinese were so successful in building difficult portions of the rail.
PPPS: What is a Rail Bond, other than having the government borrow money from capitalists? (giving them a bond yielding interest in return?)
[quote=CA renter]Who first created the capital owned by the capitalists that was used to build the factories, etc.? The money that came from private interests was initially made primarily by the exploitation of labor both here and overseas.[/quote]Not always. It has been happening more so, recently. Sometimes it is someone putting up all their worth and teaming with other capitalists to form a new company.. HP comes to mind, Apple is another. This created new ‘capitalists’ that can then lend their money to create yet other businesses.
[quote=CA renter]Sure, you can make a profit when you pay your workers next to nothing and force them to live in squalor (the most satisfied capitalist is one who manages to keep slaves to build his fortunes);[/quote]Straw man argument, taking an extreme and then attacking that extreme. Remember Henry Ford’s pay scale back when Ford started… higher than the going wage. Yes, there are abuses. I am not saying Unions should be abolished, but I do think they have pushed to an extreme. If companies applied the same tactics that Unionized labor currently does, they would be sued/under investigation. It has tilted a little too far in the other direction. When working blue collar @ GM, it was possible to make more money and have a better retirement than it was possible if you went to college, became and engineer and designed the cars at GM.
