I'm not sure that that there's a correlation between privatization of the post office and the lifespan of a country. Countries like Japan and Denmark seem to be

I'm not sure that that there's a correlation between privatization of the post office and the lifespan of a country. Countries like Japan and Denmark seem to be chugging away just fine since they stopped providing those services. Apologies for invoking Godwin's law, but Germany is another example of a country where state-owned postal services tend to be correlated with regime change. There was all sorts of drama starting around 1900 when the central government started bringing independent post offices from Kingdoms like Bavaria and Württemberg into the fold. Probably the most contentious of these takeovers was the Danzig Post Office. Many mailmen were tortured and eventually executed. Things have been much more stable in the decades since Germany privatized their postal system.