[cbd1984]

> Referencing the time period in which the economy grew at its fastest rate in history in regards to GDP and real wages? Gilded Age transformed US into the economic superpower that it is today -- regulatory vacuum helped this.

It optimized for massive growth at the expense of everything else, yes. That's not what most people actually want. Most people understand they aren't going to be Vanderbilts.

> Government corruption and high tariffs helped prevent competition and helped establish the monopolies it later set out to break up. RRs benefitted from the creation of the interstate commerce commission

So government did everything wrong and businesses did everything good, then and always, for ever and ever, amen. And you Austrian-School Libertarians wonder why nobody takes you seriously.

More to the point, do you not understand the economic benefits of massive vertical and horizontal integration, and how difficult it is to break into a field like railroads, even if we do posit a total regulatory vacuum?