Otherwise, this is the Occam's Razor answer to me, and I agree.
Private industry is just now beginning to fund things like Hyperloops and space ships - this was the role of nation-states in the past, because making trains and going to space was more costly and un-risk-manageable than any real business. The government doesn't have to build the trains, but they incentive the building.
Direct government construction of infrastructure is evolving, and in the coming decades, private industry will be more involved in the investment end of it too, because the price of production and the amount of public knowledge is increasing. I don't think our modern day robber barons have that much more real capital than their forefathers (comparing like people like Rockefeller to Gates), but it's cheaper to build a railroad, and there's the whole open internet and body of academic knowledge to consult.
Otherwise, this is the Occam's Razor answer to me, and I agree.
Private industry is just now beginning to fund things like Hyperloops and space ships - this was the role of nation-states in the past, because making trains and going to space was more costly and un-risk-manageable than any real business. The government doesn't have to build the trains, but they incentive the building.
Direct government construction of infrastructure is evolving, and in the coming decades, private industry will be more involved in the investment end of it too, because the price of production and the amount of public knowledge is increasing. I don't think our modern day robber barons have that much more real capital than their forefathers (comparing like people like Rockefeller to Gates), but it's cheaper to build a railroad, and there's the whole open internet and body of academic knowledge to consult.