I have posted this before, but let me do so once again. For the benefit of those who have only recently started following me on Facebook, let me once again explain why I am so interested in postal history. At one time postage rates were so high that only the nobility and the very wealthy regularly used the post office. For most ordinary people, letters were few and far between, and when they did arrive they usually brought bad news, such as the death of a family member. However, thanks to postal reforms in the first half of the 19th century, postage rates came down substantially, and the post offices of the world became public services for the masses. In time the post offices provided subsidies first to the steamship lines, then to the railways, and finally to the airlines, proving that government and private industry could work hand-in-hand. With civil service reform and then unionization, labor joined this partnership. Yes, there were differences among the partners, but for the most part all benefitted, as did the consumer. But all that began to change in the 1970s, not just in the USA but throughout the industrialized world. It is time to restore the partnership we once had, a partnership based on the principle that the post office is a public service that must be operated for the good of all, not for the profit of a few. And if at the present time it needs to be subsidized by tax revenue, the same way many other public services are subsidized, then so be it.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:05:12 +0000
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