[tsally]

Every time the US postal service comes up in discussion, someone invariably mentions how life would be so much better if the service was privatized. I think this argument represents a fundamental misunderstanding of public services; the post office is perhaps the canonical example of an extremely important service that only can exist in the public sector. As others have mentioned already (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1236487), delivering a piece of paper from California to Maine for under a dollar is not something the private sector can provide.

As a rule of thumb, if your gut tells you that a particular service is essential to a civilized society the service belongs in the public sector. As a nation we've decided the ability to affordability correspond with others around the country is such a service. Education is another. These two examples are extraordinarily complex problems which the US public sector solves well, all things considered. Yet every time we discuss these services someone always wants to privatize them.

For the most fundamental components of our society, privatization is never the answer.

[solutionyogi]

I would argue that the most essential service is 'grocery delivery'. And it's not run or subsidized by Government and we seem to be doing just fine. There is no reason what so ever for USPS to exist.

[tsally]

This is a gross simplification. Let's expand this discussion to public verses private. I'm going to talk about education instead of the USPS because I know more about education. Goal of a public education system: provide actual learning, understanding, and life-long skills to everyone. Goal of a private education system: maximize profits by providing competitive diplomas as cheaply as possible.

See the issue? The priority in the private system is on making profit and providing diplomas to people. The priority in the public system is on actual learning. The rampant grade inflation at Ivy League schools is a great example of learning taking a back seat in favor of producing graduates that look good on paper.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that "public" universities are any better. At my university (UIUC), research grants account for the vast majority of the funding for the engineering college. Consequently, research is the priority, not the education of the students. Simply put, the priority is where the money is. If the money is tied to the learning of the students, the students will actually learn. If it's tied to producing diplomas or publications, that's where the priority will be placed. UIUC can get away with it because its engineering graduates are still extremely highly paid. The prestige of UIUC's faculty is responsible for that, but it would be erroneous to attribute it to the educational curriculum. I can tell you from personal experience that the vast majority of graduates are average programmers at best and many haven't really internalized essential CS skills like algorithms, data structures, etc. One example that really sticks out in my mind: I went to a talk by Alan Kay last semester. Hardly any undergraduates attend, or even know or care who Alan Kay is. Alan puts up a few slides with pictures of McCarthy, Sutherland, Church, etc. Not a single undergraduate can name their primary contributions to the field. No one even knew the importance of Lisp! As Alan aptly put it, "you all are lucky your field isn't Physics; if it were you would be kicked out of the department and sent back to high school for not knowing the fundamentals of past research" (paraphrasing).

So why doesn't your grocery store example hold up? The success of a grocery store is strongly coupled to the quality of its product. Spoiled food is spoiled food. Education? Turns out the diploma, not learning, is what matters the most. The USPS is a similar situation, true value of the service (essentially free communication for all citizens everywhere) is only loosely coupled with the financial success of the service.

[philwelch]

I went to public schools. The goal seemed to be keeping young people off the streets while their parents were working while also "creating jobs" for dozens of unionized schoolteachers of varying, often poor quality.

Some government programs accomplish a useful goal, and the USPS is one of these. But many government programs accomplish goals which are orthogonal or counter to their stated, useful purposes.

[solutionyogi]

It's interesting. When you simplify USPS as essential service, it's fine. But if I take your 'essential service' argument and simplify it even further, I am doing 'gross simplification'.

Please don't even get me started on public education in United States. I would gladly allow 3 more USPS organizations to waste taxpayer's money if they get rid of public schools and adopt a school voucher system.

Please look for 'Stupid in America' show on YouTube and watch it. It will seriously change your opinion about public schools. Also, how many times have you heard people moving to certain district because they have better public schools? Have you ever heard anyone moving to certain district just because they have better grocery store?

I fail to comprehend why you think profit motive is a bad thing. Just like a private school has a profit motive, the customer (parents in case of private schools) have an incentive to get best value for their money and trust me, they will.

[tsally]

Please look for 'Stupid in America' show on YouTube and watch it. It will seriously change your opinion about public schools.

I'm aware of the documentary, and as usual, it completely misses the point. I'm intimately familiar with the inner workings of America's public and private schools (both the best and the worst on both sides). For the past several years I've had daily exposure to pretty much all angles of this issue. I suspect you've simply watched a 45 minute Youtube video and liked how microfoundations sounded when it was taught to you in school. I could write for hours on the horrors of private school vouchers alone (did you know when they tried it in Arizona, 3/4ths of the money ended up going to students who were already in private schools? [1]). And lets not even get into the fact that private schools actually don't perform that much better than public schools [2] when you account for the diversity in public schools. Considering that private schools mostly teach to a homogeneous student body, they should be blowing the public schools out of the water. They're actually not that much cheaper either, when you consider that private schools don't need to spend nearly as much money on special education programs and psychological therapy [3]. If I was a school admin I could post the most impressive numbers in the country if I'm allowed to skim from the cream of the crop, but public schools by law are not allowed to do so. However, I suspect at this point expending any more energy on this issue wasted effort since you seem dead set in your ways.

[1] http://www.gregpalast.com/no-childs-behind-left/

[2] http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006461

[3] http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/10/private-school-tuition-1...

[juhgfcgvhnjm]

Then give Fedex/TNT/DHL/etc the same subsidy/letter to do it that you give the USPS.

[tsally]

Yes, because that strategy has worked so well with cable and broadband providers. I have a heck of a lot more faith in the USPS than Comcast.

[roboneal]

With the dramatic drop in mail volumes, hasn't the market (businesses and citizens alike) "voted" that traditional first-class letter (USPS only monopoly) is not a "fundamental component" of our society?

If we haven't quite reached that point yet, can't you see we will?

[tsally]

With the dramatic drop in mail volumes, hasn't the market (businesses and citizens alike) "voted" that traditional first-class letter (USPS only monopoly) is not a "fundamental component" of our society?

No, mail is not the fundamental component I've identified. As I said, the fundamental component is: "the ability to affordability correspond with others around the country".

If we haven't quite reached that point yet, can't you see we will?

Oh, we'll get there. I think it's high time the USPS started providing free email accounts to every United States citizen with no advertisements. The USPS can provide privacy guarantees for the data on their servers that private companies cannot offer. Plus, imagine the optimizations that would be possible in business and government methodologies if every US citizen was guaranteed to have an email address. Hell, in this day and age I'm far less likely to change my email address than my mailing address. If I had a government issued email, it would never change.

[solutionyogi]

Do you really expect a government organization with all its bureaucracy to come up a solution for 'the ability to affordability correspond with others around the country'?

Private market has already found out the solution. Email, facebook, twitter.

And if you think that USPS (or any government organization for that matter) can do a better job hosting free email than Google, Yahoo or Microsoft (they all provide free email), I have serious questions about your sanity.

[tsally]

Do you really expect a government organization with all its bureaucracy to come up a solution for 'the ability to affordability correspond with others around the country'?

Yes I do. It's called the United States Postal Service. It was founded in 1775. Given its track record, I think the government could implement a digital system that will be good for another couple hundred years.

Private market has already found out the solution. Email, facebook, twitter.

The public sector has its share of successes as well. How about the postal service, the census, and national elections? The US government has been handling large scale projects since the 1700s.

And if you think that USPS (or any government organization for that matter) can do a better job hosting free email than Google, Yahoo or Microsoft (they all provide free email), I have serious questions about your sanity.

Hrm, well lets think about what happened when we privatized part of our elections (Diebold) or our defense (Blackwater). Let's compare that to the USPS which has been running successfully for over 2.5 centuries. Damn right the government can handle some problems better than the private sector. Diebold is an gross embarrassment to this country and you're fooling yourself if you think similar things wouldn't happen with a privatized postal service. The government doesn't need to have a technically superior product to Gmail, just as the USPS doesn't need to have a superior product to UPS (hint: UPS is better). The government simply needs to provide a reliable, stable service with the privacy and civil guarantees that can only be provided by a public entity. The government cares about integrity. Diebold cares about profits, and look where that got us. Untraceable election fraud in the world's most powerful democracy.

[solutionyogi]

Yes, a monkey can run an organization for 2.5 centuries if they don't have to worry about making money and someone else (i.e. taxpayers) will pay their bills. It's not rocket science.

If you actually think about it, USPS has government granted monopoly on delivering first class mail and somehow they still manage to lose billions.

I completely fail to comprehend how USPS is a success. Could you please explain what is your criteria for success is? For me, success for any organization is when they create value (produce more than they consume).

Again, the programs you have mentioned (Diebold and Blackwater) are actually government run private programs. And I am not surprised that they have failed. Compare this with Google, Apple, Microsoft, Exxon and other businesses where they serve their customers extremely well and has produced billions of dollars of wealth.

Also, if you already accept that government is not able to produce a superior product, why should they be allowed to spend the taxpayer's money? In light of national wiretapping done by Bush administration, I would really question your stance that government will be able to maintain privacy of my emails.

[philwelch]

If I had a government issued email, I probably wouldn't bother checking it, and nor would most people. Judging from the spam the USPS gleefully stuffs into my mailbox every week already I cringe to think what would happen to my email inbox.

The USPS does what it does very well, and any naysayers should try living in a country with an unreliable postal service. That having been said, I wouldn't trust them to do anything innovative. That dog's too old to learn new tricks.

[infinite8s]

The problem with government issued emails is that while everyone has a physical address (except the homeless and people 'off' the grid) not everyone has access to the internet, and mail is an important communication medium between the government and the people (pretty much any official notice from any level of government).

[billswift]

>a particular service is essential to a civilized society the service belongs in the public sector

Like health care, manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, indeed everything? Welcome to the World Soviet, comrade!

[steveklabnik]

Can only exist in the public sector?

How do you explain FedEx and UPS?

I can see both sides of this argument.

[argv_empty]

How do you explain FedEx and UPS?

I think GP's claim is not that private parcel services cannot exist, but rather that if they were to deliver first-class mail, they would charge more than $1 per letter.

[steveklabnik]

Gotcha. I would argue back that the "under $1" isn't even a legitimate path of arguing, because the post office doesn't deliver mail for under a dollar either; you'd have to factor in the cost of the taxes that subsidize that under a dollar price.

[Avshalom]

Taxes don't really subsidize the USPS, losses are paid for by tax money but they're supposed to run at a profit, which is why they have to cut mail delivery or increase stamp price.

They can afford ridiculously low postage because they have a government granted monopoly on mail so they can price their rates at a level to subsidize Remote, Oregon with profit from Portland. If they didn't have to deliver to the middle of nowhere they could probably lower prices significantly.

Which is why they need the monopoly, if I could set up a mail company in just the top 20 cities in the country I could undercut the USPS and then they'd suffer enormous revenue shortages because they'd still be mandated to deliver everywhere.

[tsally]

Actually, my claim is not that the cost would be more than a dollar, but that private carriers would flat-out refuse to deliver to many locations in the US (and with good reason; it wouldn't be profitable). We already see this problem with the lack of internet connectivity in many rural areas.

So if you believe that this sort of communication is a fundamental right for all citizens, than the service needs to be provided by the public sector. It's impossible to build a profitable business in the private sector out of it.

[hnal943]

The essential service here is mail delivery, not mail delivery "under a dollar."

[tsally]

No, the essential service is mail delivery under a dollar to anywhere in the United States. That is a fundamentally different service than what is provided by Fedex or UPS.

[hnal943]

Simply because it's different doesn't mean it's essential. Is there an inalienable right to mail delivery whose rate structure ignores distance? Why doesn't the same right protect people from paying a premium for mailing heavy objects?

[SapphireSun]

Think of how revolutionary the internet is. The post office is the old version of the internet.

[smallblacksun]

The essential service is universal mail delivery for a uniform (not cheaper to mail something to Chicago than Bumblefuck, WY), reasonable cost. Could/would private companies do that? Reply hazy, try again