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I can't speak for other countries, but the US Postal Service has a mandate to provide mail services to every single resident in the US - "Universal Service". Yo

I can't speak for other countries, but the US Postal Service has a mandate to provide mail services to every single resident in the US - "Universal Service". You can see some info on that here: https://about.usps.com/universal-postal-service/usps-uso-executive-summary.txt https://about.usps.com/universal-postal-service/usps-uso-exe... Essentially, a private company has the option to not provide certain services to you or even decline to serve you at your address entirely. The USPS does not. In many cases a carrier like UPS or FedEx hands things off to the USPS to do last-mile delivery in an area their delivery network doesn't cover, because the USPS is already built out to handle it. Normal companies cannot do this "just fine" because it's a money-losing proposition. That's why the postal service has to be an agency instead of a for-profit company traded on stock exchanges, it is necessary to have universal service even if the country loses money doing it. Essential things like vote-by-mail, mail-order pharmacies, etc become impossible without it.

eru 6y ago
Does your argument also apply to the provision of food?
- kevingadd 6y ago
  Food is a different matter in many ways that don't make it a good point of comparison with the USPS. For example: Many foods and ingredients can be stocked up on intermittently - say, once a week - and will last for a good amount of time in the fridge or freezer. So you can take a trip to a grocery store or other distribution facility a few times a month, even if it's far from you. You can also pretty safely and legally have a friend pick up groceries for you if you don't have a car or are unable to leave the house, but having someone go deal with your mail would be considerably more difficult (for legal reasons and otherwise). Lots of mail is time sensitive - even if that ballot you're being mailed won't melt in the distribution center like a neglected package of chocolates would, there's a fixed deadline for you to fill out the ballot and a fixed deadline for it to make it to the processing facility. If delivery of that ballot - or the pick-up and return delivery - is delayed, it's worthless. As such, daily mail delivery is essential in many ways even if people don't receive mail every day. Incidentally, we've had widespread issues with ballot delivery and postmarking in the last year or so, so it's a real problem and not a hypothetical. On that note, the government has to send mail to every citizen multiple times a year, they're going to have to pay private mailing services for it anyway... How much taxpayer money is actually being saved by privatizing it?
  - eru 6y ago
    I'm not quite sure I get your argument about why dealing with other people's mail would be difficult? Using the post office's services is exactly 'other people dealing with your mail'. (If there are any special laws that give the post office more rights than you can voluntarily give your friend or a business, those laws ought to be amended.) You have an argument about time sensitivity. But I don't understand how you arrive at the frequency of daily? Why not weekly? Why not hourly? For voting, weekly or even monthly would surely be enough. Election dates are known far enough in advance. Any additional time pressure is purely there by legislative fiat. (And we also already assume that people who vote in person can find their way to the polling station on their own. We don't argue for a government rickshaw to cart them there.) > On that note, the government has to send mail to every citizen multiple times a year, they're going to have to pay private mailing services for it anyway... How much taxpayer money is actually being saved by privatizing it? A few times a year is much less than the total volume of mail. I was going to type out some philosophical arguments about hypotheticals and counterfactuals here. But no need for that. We can just look at the impact of postal privatisations in eg Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_service_privatization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_service_privatization In any case, what I'm arguing for would be a level playing field and the absence of political pressure. See eg the whole argument about how 'the evil party has decreed that money must be set aside for known future obligations, and that is bad'. You only get that because the whole thing is politicized. I'd say to abolish the universal service obligation and the postal monopoly. Let all providers compete on a level playing field.
    - delfinom 6y ago
      The one thing not discussed is how does one hold third party providers to any standard. Right now, Fedex Ground is basically contractors 10 layers deep. They have no incentive to deliver anything correctly but bumrush packages out. When it comes to legal mail it's a huge disaster waiting to happen if Fedex was supposed to deliver a jury summons and the delivery guy being paid dirt just chucked it out and now you are in jail on a bench warrant. Sure they'll just slap Fedex with a fine and you got unemployed in the mean time. The other issue is security. Many apartment complexes and even neighborhoods nowadays have locked central mailrooms but they provide a key for a USPS worker to enter. Those keys are tied to a keychain for the route. Are buildings and individuals now supposed to give out keys to every fly by night contractor in existence that changes every day?
- learc83 6y ago
  Yes, we spend billions a year subsidizing food production and distribution.
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  Does your argument apply to the provision of a military?
  - eru 6y ago
    No, if you want to argue against a government military you need a different tack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) > In economics, a public good (also known as a social good or collective good) is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous, in that individuals cannot be excluded from use or could benefit from without paying for it, and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others or the good can be used simultaneously by more than one person. Basically, defense of the realm is commonly seen as such a public good. However, food and postal services are excludable and rivalrous.
    - take_a_breath 6y ago
      I don’t follow the argument. Are you claiming that you can’t benefit from the postal service unless you personally pay for it? - I get important documents (mail) all the time that I didn’t pay for. - The postal service can also be used by millions of people at the same time. It happens every day. Sounds like we agree that postal service is a public good.
      - eru 6y ago
        Delivery of mail is not a public good by the economics definition used in the Wikipedia article: (1) A provider of postal services can exclude you from either sending or receiving mail. (Excludable) (2) There's only a limited capacity to send mail at any given time. The postman can only carry so much. (Rivalrous) (Of course, sustained high demand for mail delivery services can lead to an expansion of supply, ie they can higher more mail man. Just like sustained high demand for bread means more bakeries will produce more bread.) That postal services charge the sender rather the receiver is mostly incidental and not important for the distinction. They could just as well charge you for receiving mail. Similar to how people in the US seem to pay for receiving calls on their cell phones (I heard). It's not that hard. Have a look at the examples section in the Wikipedia article for a discussion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)#Exampl... The rivalrous nature of the providing postal services is the whole point of the article we are commenting on, btw.

eru 6y ago

Does your argument also apply to the provision of food?

kevingadd 6y ago
Food is a different matter in many ways that don't make it a good point of comparison with the USPS. For example: Many foods and ingredients can be stocked up on intermittently - say, once a week - and will last for a good amount of time in the fridge or freezer. So you can take a trip to a grocery store or other distribution facility a few times a month, even if it's far from you. You can also pretty safely and legally have a friend pick up groceries for you if you don't have a car or are unable to leave the house, but having someone go deal with your mail would be considerably more difficult (for legal reasons and otherwise). Lots of mail is time sensitive - even if that ballot you're being mailed won't melt in the distribution center like a neglected package of chocolates would, there's a fixed deadline for you to fill out the ballot and a fixed deadline for it to make it to the processing facility. If delivery of that ballot - or the pick-up and return delivery - is delayed, it's worthless. As such, daily mail delivery is essential in many ways even if people don't receive mail every day. Incidentally, we've had widespread issues with ballot delivery and postmarking in the last year or so, so it's a real problem and not a hypothetical. On that note, the government has to send mail to every citizen multiple times a year, they're going to have to pay private mailing services for it anyway... How much taxpayer money is actually being saved by privatizing it?
- eru 6y ago
  I'm not quite sure I get your argument about why dealing with other people's mail would be difficult? Using the post office's services is exactly 'other people dealing with your mail'. (If there are any special laws that give the post office more rights than you can voluntarily give your friend or a business, those laws ought to be amended.) You have an argument about time sensitivity. But I don't understand how you arrive at the frequency of daily? Why not weekly? Why not hourly? For voting, weekly or even monthly would surely be enough. Election dates are known far enough in advance. Any additional time pressure is purely there by legislative fiat. (And we also already assume that people who vote in person can find their way to the polling station on their own. We don't argue for a government rickshaw to cart them there.) > On that note, the government has to send mail to every citizen multiple times a year, they're going to have to pay private mailing services for it anyway... How much taxpayer money is actually being saved by privatizing it? A few times a year is much less than the total volume of mail. I was going to type out some philosophical arguments about hypotheticals and counterfactuals here. But no need for that. We can just look at the impact of postal privatisations in eg Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_service_privatization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_service_privatization In any case, what I'm arguing for would be a level playing field and the absence of political pressure. See eg the whole argument about how 'the evil party has decreed that money must be set aside for known future obligations, and that is bad'. You only get that because the whole thing is politicized. I'd say to abolish the universal service obligation and the postal monopoly. Let all providers compete on a level playing field.
  - delfinom 6y ago
    The one thing not discussed is how does one hold third party providers to any standard. Right now, Fedex Ground is basically contractors 10 layers deep. They have no incentive to deliver anything correctly but bumrush packages out. When it comes to legal mail it's a huge disaster waiting to happen if Fedex was supposed to deliver a jury summons and the delivery guy being paid dirt just chucked it out and now you are in jail on a bench warrant. Sure they'll just slap Fedex with a fine and you got unemployed in the mean time. The other issue is security. Many apartment complexes and even neighborhoods nowadays have locked central mailrooms but they provide a key for a USPS worker to enter. Those keys are tied to a keychain for the route. Are buildings and individuals now supposed to give out keys to every fly by night contractor in existence that changes every day?
learc83 6y ago
Yes, we spend billions a year subsidizing food production and distribution.
take_a_breath 6y ago
Does your argument apply to the provision of a military?
- eru 6y ago
  No, if you want to argue against a government military you need a different tack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) > In economics, a public good (also known as a social good or collective good) is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous, in that individuals cannot be excluded from use or could benefit from without paying for it, and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others or the good can be used simultaneously by more than one person. Basically, defense of the realm is commonly seen as such a public good. However, food and postal services are excludable and rivalrous.
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    I don’t follow the argument. Are you claiming that you can’t benefit from the postal service unless you personally pay for it? - I get important documents (mail) all the time that I didn’t pay for. - The postal service can also be used by millions of people at the same time. It happens every day. Sounds like we agree that postal service is a public good.
    - eru 6y ago
      Delivery of mail is not a public good by the economics definition used in the Wikipedia article: (1) A provider of postal services can exclude you from either sending or receiving mail. (Excludable) (2) There's only a limited capacity to send mail at any given time. The postman can only carry so much. (Rivalrous) (Of course, sustained high demand for mail delivery services can lead to an expansion of supply, ie they can higher more mail man. Just like sustained high demand for bread means more bakeries will produce more bread.) That postal services charge the sender rather the receiver is mostly incidental and not important for the distinction. They could just as well charge you for receiving mail. Similar to how people in the US seem to pay for receiving calls on their cell phones (I heard). It's not that hard. Have a look at the examples section in the Wikipedia article for a discussion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)#Exampl... The rivalrous nature of the providing postal services is the whole point of the article we are commenting on, btw.