Do you really think that I don't understand that problem? There are other ways to solve it than socialism.
Good grief individuals can be just as crooked as corporations and governments,
It's a matter of scaling and risk. Governments make huge, sometimes fatal mistake, but the risks get even worse when corporations can leverage to control government. That's why scaling is important to maintain competition that is the great mitigating factor.
that is why we are supposed to be a nation of laws not men.
Who said anything about not having laws? Crawl out of your 19th Century box and think for a minute. You know me better than to regurgitate this reflexive spew.
I think you are the one in the 19th century box, private toll roads and bridges went out in the 20's. What you seem to advocate is the ability of a single individual to become a financial hold out and make unreasonable profit even to bankrupt a project, sort of like the EPA does now.
I think Kelo was clearly wrong but you can thank corrupt politicians and crony capitalists not individuals that know they benefit from the development of common use facilities such as roads and bridges. It is not a perfect system but man is fallible and shite happens when people are involved but some sort of compromise is always require to move forward.
I can remember as a youngster we had 25 cycle electricity so our radios, washers and anything electric other than light bulbs, would not work the next town over that is the kind of thing that can happen when there is not some sort of standards and eminent domain is required to make that possible. The 25 cycle was courtesy of Eagle Picher mining company.