It wasn't hard for White to tell which railroads fell into which category.

One problem nowadays is that there's a fuzzy line between companies that are using state power to get ahead (receiving special favors or tax breaks, or creating legislation to wreck their competition or give themselves a monopoly), and companies that have people in Washington out of self-defense, to protect themselves against the other sort. Staying above the fray entirely is getting very difficult. Microsoft's political activity was almost nonexistent until the government attempted to destroy them. Not any more. I don't consider that progress.

The solution is what it's always been: Reduce the power of the government to influence the economy.

As for the crooks not being able to compete, White makes it obvious that without special government favors the transcontinentals wouldn't have made it. The companies running profitable railroads where a real need came up would have.

When there was need for a transcontinental link, cooperation and organization between companies would have created one. Few people realize that most of the vast and complex electrical power grid in this country was privately developed in a similar way.

Freedom isn't about efficiency, if what you mean by "efficiency" is minimum complexity and maximum linearity. If there were only one brand of everything in a store, it would certainly be a lot more efficient than dozens of versions of the same basic product.

Free markets are not "easier" than top-down totalitarianism. Nor are the principles self-evident by any means. Good Lord, nobody knows that better than me, who has tried to explain them for years. But the graph of market freedom and standards of living is practically a straight line across many nations. This is at least compelling empirical evidence. You don't need to be a chemist to know that aspirin works.