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| ▲ | kube-system 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It is ideological. Many point to private courier services as an 'obvious' point of comparison. However, what I believe many are missing is that having a physical mail network that is accountable to the public good and our government is an advantage for many important situations that should not be dependent on the free market. | | |
| ▲ | 10111001 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It is ideological. Many point to private courier services as an 'obvious' point of comparison. On a couple different levels: 1. Some people (like libertarians) have an ideological opposition to government-provided services, and believe all or nearly all services provided by the government should be abolished and replaced with the "free market." 2. An ideological belief that private business is "efficient" and government is "bloated and wasteful" by definition. 3. An lazy belief that "the government should be run like a business," therefore the tools you use to evaluate a business (like profitability), should be used to evaluate government. 4. etc. I think those are distinct beliefs, but they kind of feed into each other and support each other. Like if you believe government services are wasteful and business efficient, it would follow you would improve things by abolishing the government services. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | There are good libertarian arguments for a government run post office -- particularly in how it support free speech, the right to petition, free and fair elections, how it uniquely protects 4th amendment rights, etc. |
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| ▲ | Tangurena2 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, very ideological. Some people want government to run like a business. Is your state/county/city not profitable enough? Then your state gets fired or downsized. Or maybe sold to the highest bidder. In any event, the US Constitution requires a post office. US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8 > The Congress shall have Power ... > To establish Post Offices and post Roads; https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri... | | |
| ▲ | masfuerte an hour ago | parent [-] | | Not that I think they should, but Congress could legally vote to abolish the postal service. They had the power to create it but they weren't required to. |
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| ▲ | nukanse 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A profit is the net value given to society minus the cost taken from society. Example: you take floor worth 1 from society, make a cake and sell it for 3. You gave 3 and took 1, enriching society by 2. It means that you reduced the poverty of other people by 2. Somebody who could not afford a cake before, now can. This is why making a profit is philanthropy, and for the same reason, losing money impoverishes the rest of society. If you lose money, you impoverished other people. If the state loses money, it impoverishes society, but is the poorest people who gets the worst of it. | | |
| ▲ | tavavex an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm sorry, what? You didn't give society 3, you gave it 1+the value of your added work, and pocketed the difference between that amount and 3. And before anyone jumps in to claim that people paying 3 means the item is actually objectively worth 3 - no, government services are often essential and irreplaceable, people are often willing to pay anything for them. This is like saying I somehow added 10000 of value to society by refusing to extinguish someone's burning house for anything less than that amount, despite the actual work costing me far less to perform. As for any non-essential services, that difference is covered by advertising and all sorts of manipulative tricks humanity has come up to force people to make irrational choices, especially over the last century. Profit-seeking for essential services is the epitome of selfishness that can only be justified through twisted ideologies. When applied to governments that are supposed to take the least and give the most, it is pure evil, just skimming off goods and services someone desperately needs to put that in your pocket. | |
| ▲ | zer0x4d 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I like this analogy. The government should of course aim to make as much money as possible |
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| ▲ | coryrc an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The Post Office was established before telegraph. Before the phone and Internet. Before 37 of the states were part of the Union. Perhaps we don't need to subsidize it to the degree we do anymore? (subsidize: not only do we incurring retirement obligations from the general fund, we charge the same amount to deliver a letter to rural Alaska as we do to a place across the street) We could cut costs by reducing mail delivery frequency country-wide and more in costlier areas. In the age of satellite Internet, the need for delivering a physical thing quickly is not something we need to federally subsidize (argument for slowly: yes). In my suburban area I'd be completely unaffected by 2/week delivery. People in rural areas need to pay the cost of living rural now that we don't have anyone subsistence farming. | | | |
| ▲ | bityard an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What's the alternative? Be consistently underfunded and cut postal worker wages year after year? Somehow arrange to sell exactly the correct number of Forever stamps on Dec 31 to cover all expenses incurred over the year? | |
| ▲ | zer0x4d 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Umm of course the government should be profitable. How do you expect it to work if it doesn't make money? Government makes money from oil, trade, taxes, fines, etc. I don't think the government being profitable has been an issue at any point. |
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