Anyone trying to suggest that gov't should be in charge of things like railroads and not capitalists is just letting Wuf shoot fish in a barrel. I think it's pretty clear capitalism wins that battle.

You can also argue that gov't regulation of industry leads to monopolies, abuses, etc.. And these things are probably true.

But, there's often a human price to pay for overall economic efficiency inasmuch as it leads to social Darwinism, resulting in inequalities in access to resources. Capitalism ran free in the oldy days and led directly to the class system. There's no disputing it. Part of the reason governments took an interest in economics in the first place was because the poor were always pissed off at being exploited by the rich, and the gov'ts didn't like the idea of a large proportion of the people being angry all the time. So they usually tried to balance things out. And when they didn't they had revolutions to deal with.

You can say gov'ts don't do a cost-efficient job of redressing the imbalances brought about by the free market and theorize that capitalism would. But when capitalism was the root cause of the problem in the first place it's hard to buy into the idea that it's also the cure.