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Historical Accident
Carter, John P.
18/1  (Fall 1975): 45-48

The article focuses on the business and governmental organization development because of the accident of a few decades in the timing of inventions. The article discusses the sequence of technological innovations that produced the railway monopolies in the U.S. and around the world. The popular reaction to those monopolies produced the state regulatory agencies and the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The enormous indivisibilities of railways led to the concept of ruinous competition when multiple lines served the same markets so that in 1920 the certificate made its appearance, new railways could not be built without a certificate of public convenience and necessity from the ICC. But monopoly pressures in transportation, with free entry into the steam-carriage business, would not seem to be different from monopoly pressures elsewhere in the economy. Transportation by steam carriage would not have required the invention of a whole special set of organizations to deal with transportation. The ICC need never have emerged, if it was a different sequence of inventions.

 

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