Should the US just nationalize freight rail? Obviously, competition doesn’t meaningfully regulate the industry, when there is an effective duopoly in every region of the country. Absent market discipline, management from within is more effective at meeting social objectives than regulating clumsily from the outside. 1/

Certain “efficiencies” would be lost: The state could not employ workers on lean “PSR” terms. But that’s just another way of saying other stakeholders would have to bear costs now concentrated onto workers. And given the industry’s thick recent margins, the only stakeholder who need lose is the shareholders who would be cut off. We could make the industry better for both workers and shippers on shareholders’ and managers’ backs. Given how purely extractive they’ve become, why shouldn’t we? /fin