S. Yu. Witte – Originator of Railway Tariffs Theory. Part 2

Abstract

Exactly 140 years ago, the most famous, in our opinion, work by Sergei Yu. Witte «Principles of railway tariffs for transportation of goods» was first published. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this book. Our regular author, a well-known scientist, D. Sc. (Engineering), Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Dmitry Levin, decided to share his thoughts after a new reading of this work, which has not yet lost its relevance. The encyclopaedic views of S. Yu. Witte may be of interest both to economists and to sociologists, philosophers, scientists, and specialists in the theory of public administration. Many of S. Yu. Witte’s judgments have not lost their scientific, theoretical and practical significance to this day and in this sense turned out to be prophetic. They also regard the competition of rail transport with water and land transport (then it was horse-drawn haulage, but now it can be easily substituted in the judgments with road transport), the need for a clear correlation of any economic models with national interests, the requirements of a particular historical stage, the harmfulness of blind use of schemes borrowed from outside without considering the socio-political and economic context.
The methodology for constructing prices for transportation of goods, set out by S. Yu. Witte is not only of historical interest (especially in conjunction with the reviews and discussions that accompanied the appearance of his book), but remains important for the modern solution of newly arising issues of improving the tariff system under market transition. Not least of all, the methodology is connected with the cardinal question that arose even then: whether railways should be a natural monopoly or a commercial structure –a debate that continues today.
This issue publishes the second, final part of the article, which contains the author’s own conclusions and proposals regarding the possible transformation of S. Y. Witte’s ideas regarding solution of modern transport and tariff problems.