Isn’t their argument that, because highways & railroads occupy physical space, it’s difficult for companies to form competing networks, so there’s a tendency towards “natural monopoly?”
Discussion
It sure is. In which case they are not educated (or dishonest) about the historical track record of entrepreneurs building the roads (e.g. the UK) and railroad infrastructure with nothing but private funds until the government swooped in to monopolize the business.
I kind of get how we can have open competition in railroad lines, but it’s far from obvious to me that this is possible with respect to roads. It seems rather difficult to build a competing network of roads between homes & businesses in most towns.
Study the history of toll roads in Great Britain 💪