[PoorMuttly]

"non-state-controlled production"

What part of the salt bowls or the paddle did they extrapolate this from?

[anymouse]

I think it was the sophistication and wide distribution of the salt production facilities and the distance from the central government seat of power that drove their conclusion.

Centrally planned government infrastructures usually concentrate around the seat of power and gradually decrease with distance (Moscow, Beijing and Washington are examples of this.) To have such a critical industry well developed and so remote from the concentration of power lends one to consider that an entrepreneurial force was at work in that operation.

Frontiers breed entrepreneurship.