The railroads were supposed to introduce an age of competition, individual fulfillment, and small farming. But in fact what they did is they created large corporations—both incredibly competitive and monopolistic—that controlled the economy.

In 2025, AI is similarly eating the entire economy—from the stock market (AI-related stocks have accounted for 75% of S&P 500 returns since ChatGPT launched in November 2022) to the construction industry. According to JPMorgan , data centers “are eclipsing office construction spending” and pushing up electricity prices across the country.

You begin to get a political structure of regulation, which will in fact not stop this great explosion of American ingenuity but harness it and begin to make it useful.

The railroads turned spatial connections into temporal connections. I live in Los Angeles, and when I talk about going someplace, I don’t measure it in terms of distance [e.g., 10 miles away] I measure it in terms of time [e.g., 40 minutes away]. The railroads did that.

railroads are incredibly corrupt. I mean, they don’t invent American corruption. It’s much older than that, but they bring it into its modern form. They’re the ones who create modern political lobbying. They’re the ones who buy Congress by and large. They’re the ones who throughout this period will always be giving favors to what they call their... See more