Public Benefit Quotes
At the time, roads were built by the states. This was one of the first instances urging that the Federal Government take some responsibility for roads. This would culminate when President Eisenhower proposed and created the National Highway System and as Madison predicted, it would have a massive economic benefit for the nation.
Then a Senator and defending the administration's use of an unvouchered Secret Service fund:
While this statement seems totally absurd to us today, at the time most politicians and judges believed it. Only the left wingers and the populists opposed the doctrine as well as most business owners who knew the truth but of course most preferred the have their own monopoly. One of the reasons the large American corporations did not want Jewish and Chinese immigrants is that those cultures supported highly competitive businesses and might give consumers a better deal or worse, their culture would argue for less monopoly and more competition. For more than half a century AT&T was given a monopoly over almost all telephone service in the United States. Finally the Federal Courts saw through the company propaganda, and ordered AT&T broken up. The “Baby Bells” have persuaded most state legislatures and regulatory bodies of this same argument, and almost every community of the United States has a monopoly on local wired local telephone service. The same is true about water and electricity and a great deal of American transportation. Every major company strives for as much of a monopolistic position the government will allow; some are overt like the electrical companies. Others are more subtle and use copyright and patents to be sure that there is no price or service competition. Fortunately, the high tech industry is to technologically competitive that prices have been have been going down constantly not like telephone and Internet connectivity, entertainment, education, and professional services.
Colman’s view that business failures contributing to society may be more important than the contributions of the wealthy and successful has been a common theme where failed business men make great politicians (Truman) or failed politicians are appreciated as great philosophers (Paine). This seems to be the first American argument that a failed economic enterprise can have a very beneficial short and/or long term effect on economic development. The failed business could start an entire industry which succeeds later when technology or capital becomes more readily available, or even if implemented by a better manager. Arguably, the California gold rush miners never made any significant money, but their presence changed the economic fact of California. The American airline industry has made little or no money in its history but has enabled development throughout the nation. And the dot com bubble may well have been an economic debacle of the end of the 20th century, but it spurred economic development that has benefited the entire globe.
