In his 2008 article for the New York Times, James Gleick talks about "the gloom that has fallen over the book-publishing industry" to describe the the negative impact of digitalizing books in the book-publishing industry.
In this article he describes the already decline in paper-books sales due to the rise of digital platforms such as Kindle, epub, etc, and how the future of book-publishers looked grimer because of an agreement between authors, publishers and Google to allow the scanning and digitalizing of books to make them accesible in website and digital platforms.
This agreement would be dramatic for the sectors of the book-publishing industry dealing with marketing, archiving and distributing physical paper books.
Let's review. Realpolitik is a German word referring to politics-driven practical, or pragmatic, concerns rather than ideological ones
...Charged very high prices to move farm products to market
The farmers felt the railroads had monopoly power over them. The farmers essentially had no choice but to send their crops to market on trains. There was not much, if any, competition on most short-line tracks that went through farm areas. Therefore, most farmers had to simply accept whatever price railroads charged to transport crops. Farmers felt the railroads could gouge them by charging high prices and that they, the farmers, had no recourse when this happened. They blamed much of their trouble on this monopoly power.
By Burning Books? I'm sorry I had to look up your question. If I am wrong, I'm truly sorry.