"There's a big difference between entrepreneurs who make a fortune in the market, and those who do so by gaming the government."
James J. Hill: Transforming the American Northwest
"In 1962 Ayn Rand gave a lecture titled 'America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business' in which she identified two types of businessmen. ... Burton Folsom, Jr., later called these 'economic and political businessmen,' the first, self-made men who earned their wealth through hard work and free trade, and the second, men with political connections who made their fortunes through special privileges from government.
James Jerome Hill, builder of the Great Northern railroad, was the only railroad entrepreneur of the nineteenth century who received no federal subsidies to build his railroads. All other builders, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, received aid. Perhaps more than any other American, Hill helped to transform the American northwest by opening it to widespread settlement, farming, and commercial development. In the process, he became one of the wealthiest men of the Gilded Age, amassing a fortune estimated at $63 million."
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