GETTING CAPITALISM RIGHT.

Here's Mark Skousen on what enterprise can deliver. "Andrew Carnegie was right: 'Capitalism is about turning luxuries into necessities,' and the poor benefit even more than the rich."  Yes, provided business delivers the goods.  Trains correspondent Fred W. Frailey calls out the railroads, and, per corollary, the entire cult of shareholder value.

For Class I railroads, record revenues, record earnings ... and unsurpassed congestion and unhappiness among shippers.  Not a good combination.  The best way I know to go out of business is to prosper while your customers suffer.

(Trains print edition, January 2015, page 16.)  It gets better.  "Railroading turns out to be a growth industry only if measured by executive compensation."

More recent reports suggest the freights are moving more fluidly again.  Why?  Hire more crews, repair and replace the locomotives, build additional tracks.

The generalization to other enterprises is left as an exercise.