Government Regulation Set Up To Help Morphs Into Restrictions That Hurt

An excerpt from Milton Friedman's "Liberalism, Old Style".
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The Interstate Commerce Commission was established to protect the public against the railroads when railroads probably did have a large element of natural monopoly.  The development of highway and air transport has largely eliminated any natural monopoly element in railroads, yet instead of the abolition of the Interstate Commerce Commission, government control has been extended to these other transportation media.  The ICC has become a means of protecting the railroads from the competition of trucks instead of the public from the absence of competition . . . . . In practice, the claim of natural monopoly is more often an excuse for intervention desired on other grounds than a valid justification for intervention.