11/23/11 How much more ridiculous can the US Postal Service get? This you will not believe. It has embarked on a public relations campaign to get people to stop sending so much email and start licking more stamps. This is how it is dealing with its $10 billion loss last year. Meanwhile, rather than offering better service, it is cutting back ever more, which can only guarantee that the mails will get worse than they already are.
It’s true that mail still has a place in the digital world, as the post office says. But the government shouldn’t be the institution to run it. It already has competitors in package delivery but the government stands firmly against letting any private company deliver something like first class mail. And so it has been since the beginning. The state and only the state is permitted to charge people for non-urgent paper mail in a letter envelop.
It’s a control thing. The government is into that. And it is far from new.
Do you know the amazing story of Lysander Spooner? He lived from 1808 to 1887. His first great battle was taking on the post office monopoly. In the 1840s, he was like most people at the time: fed up with the high prices and bad service. But as an intellectual and entrepreneur, he decided to do something about it. He started the American Letter Mail Company, and his letter business gave the government some serious competition.
It opened offices in major cities, organized a network of steamships and railroads, and hired people to get the mail to where it needed to be. His service was both faster and cheaper than the government’s own. Then he published a pamphlet to fight the power: “The Unconstitutionality of the Laws of Congress Prohibiting Private Mails.” It was brilliant. It rallied people to his side. And he made a profit.
The government hated him and his company and began to litigate against him. It dramatically lowered the price for its services, and used public money to cover its losses. The goal was to bankrupt Spooner, and it eventually succeeded. Spooner’s private postal system had to be shut down. It’s the same way the government today shuts down private schools, private currencies, private security, private roads, private companies that ignore the central plan, and anyone else who stands up for freedom.
From this one anecdote alone, you can see that the post office is hardly a “natural monopoly” — something the government has to provide because free enterprise can’t do so. It is a forced monopoly, one kept alive solely through laws and subsidies. If the post office closed its doors today, there would be 1000 companies rushing in to fill the gap. Just as in the 1840s, the results would be cheaper, better services. The government runs the post office because it wants to control the command posts of society, including communication. The Internet as a global communication device snuck up on the state before the state could kill it.
Let’s return to the 19th century. Spooner didn’t go away. He was more than an entrepreneur. He was a brilliant and pioneering intellectual, as the collection The Lysander Spooner Reader makes clear. He was a champion of individual liberty and a passionate opponent of all forms of tyranny. He was an abolitionist before it became fashionable but he also defended the South’s right to secede.
Most incredibly, he was probably the first 19th century American to return to the old anti-Federalist tradition of post-Revolutionary America. He did this by asking the unaskable question: why should the US Constitution — however it is interpreted — be binding on every individual living in this geographic region?
This document was passed generations ago. Maybe you could say that the signers were bound by it, but what about those who opposed it at the time, and what about future generations? Why are the living being forced to live by parchment arrangement made by people long dead? Why are the living bound by a privileged group’s interpretations of its meaning?
In his view, people have rights or they do not have rights. If they have rights, no ancient scroll restricting those rights should have any power to take those rights away. Nor does it matter what a bunch of old guys in black robes say: rights are real things, not legal constructs to be added or reduced based on the results of courtroom deliberations. Plenty of Americans before his time would have agreed with him! It’s still the case.
Now, keep in mind that Spooner lived in a time where the living memory of these debates had not entirely disappeared. He knew what many people today do not know, namely that the Articles of Confederation made for a freer confederation of states than the Constitution. The Constitution amounted to an increase in government power, despite all its language about restricting government power. Remember too that it was only a few years after the Constitution was rammed through that the feds were suddenly jailing people for the speech crime of criticizing the US president!
Spooner spoke plainly: what you call the Constitution has no authority to take away my rights. Hence his famous essay: “Constitution of No Authority.” In “No Treason” he argues that the state has no rights over your freedom of speech. In “Vices Not Crimes,” he shows that people in any society are capable of doing terrible things but the law should only concern itself with aggression against person and property. Reading them all together, as they are in this book, is a radicalizing experience — a liberating experience. It makes you see the world in a completely different way.
It’s true that they aren’t teaching about Spooner in public school. But he was a giant by any standard, the 19th century’s own Thomas Jefferson (but even better than Jefferson on most issues). There is still so much to learn here. It’s no wonder that his legacy has been suppressed.
This edition of his best work is published by Fox & Wilkes, an imprint of Laissez-Faire Books. Incredibly, you are still permitted to buy this and read it without getting arrested — for now.
Regards,
Jeffrey Tucker,
for The Daily Reckoning
Jeffrey Tucker
Jeffrey Tucker is the publisher and executive editor of Laissez-Faire Books, and the author of Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo and It's a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes, among thousands of articles.
The Daily Reckoning is your premier source for making sense of the news Washington and Wall Street generate. Each business day, The Daily Reckoning calls on its stable of world-class writers and thinkers to show you how to get ahead.
Start your 100% FREE subscription to The Daily Reckoning today and you’ll get a free research report, “How to Survive the Fall of Social Security.” Simply enter your email address below to get your free report and join over 495,000 worldwide Daily Reckoning subscribers!
We Respect Your Privacy and We will
Never Share or Sell Your Email Address
I’m not an expert on it, but at least as I dimly understand it, the Postal service (at least 18th century version) is actually authorized by the Constitution. As is money (Oops! supposed to be gold or silver), the military, and certain other activities.
Mr Tucker-
Why is it ridiculous for the post office to encourage people to send letters?
You say “the mails will get worse than they already are.” My only complaint is waiting in line. I think the rates are great and the service dependable. One of the ways they are looking to cut is by going to 5 day delivery. Like the private companies currently do. Whoops!
There is no restiction against private companies delivering mail. None. Many courier services exist in large cities. They just can’t use the government’s mailbox. Please provide a law to back your case.
You claim the Post Office is alive today because of subsidies. The Post Office receives no subsidies. The only money they get is compensation for mailing stuff for the blind. That is why you hear about the Post Office having budget problems and not the military.
Spooner charged three cents a letter. Next year it will be 45 with the USPS. For fun you could do an inflation calculation and see which is less.
Do you really believe “The Internet as a global communication device snuck up on the state before the state could kill it.”? I think the government had a very large hand in developing it.
I think it is unlikely that 1000s of companies would love to get into the letter business. You do know DHL gave up here because it was too crowded? That leaves us with 3 major package shippers. 997 to go.
And I am just fine being born into the constitution as it was written. What a wonderful document.
Sorry to keep going on but you have thrown up so many softballs.
I do think I will get a copy of the book. I will have it sent book rate with the USPS. It is much less than UPS of FedEx and comes just as fast. ZING!!!!!
JRod.
I must have been half asleep when I wrote my last comment because I missed the most obvious zinger in the world. Mr. Tucker’s bio lists him as the publisher and executive editor of Laissez-Faire books, so I head over to the website and after clicking their shipping link I get this:
All items are shipped by the LOWEST priced service available unless otherwise requested by the customer. Our normal method of shipping is MEDIA MAIL within the United States. (emphasis mine)
Can you kids guess who delivers media mail?!
Cheers!
@ JRod > New title: Spooner the Profit for Tucker
Jeffrey,
I have to admit I am a fan of your prose but I have to ask if you have ever used UPS? They should charge more for a letter or parcel if they are losing money.
UPS won’t even ship guns although USPS has no problem.
Let me first state that I have no connection to the postal service except through my mailbox.
I have lived at my present address for over thirty years and have had no reason to complain about my mail service in that time. Indeed, over that period service has improved from good to excellent so that I’m often amazed by how quickly a letter or package is delivered today.
The only burr under my saddle is the constant stream of unwanted junk mail the USPS is FORCED to deliver by decree of our elected swindlers.
Perhaps if the junk mailers paid their fair share in the way of postage the USPS might not be forced to pass its tin cup around to the taxpayers.
Lick stamps?
No body does that any more, at least not in the USA. It’s all the peel & stick type now.
-Yes,but you do realize that luxury yacht sales and services are at all time highs? Look at all the jobs being creating by the ‘job creators’ here in the states.
“It’s the same way the government today shuts down private schools, private currencies, private security, private roads, private companies that ignore the central plan, and anyone else who stands up for freedom.”
Private schools were opening all over the place with tax subsidies from the governments. Local public schools can’t even afford to fix their leaky roofs.
States have plans to sell their Interstates to private banking concerns who want to operate toll roads.
Private Security firms might be surprised to learn they are being suppressed by the government as well. Ever hear of Blackwater, or their nom de jure?
I guess having one military, one subsidized large airplane maker, one border guard, a couple subsidized mobile phone cos, a couple subsidized cable cos, a couple subsidized seed suppliers, etc. is fine with you? Your argument is shallow and without merit. Go take a peek at your near-monopolistic business brethren for a look at real waste, cronyism and taxpayer support.
It’s really going to stink when you want to mail a letter to Hawaii and FedEx tells you it’ll cost $12 and when you complain the USPS used to do it for 44 cents they laugh.
Even now FedEX, DHL, UPS don’t ship things all they way to their destinations they use the USPS to aid them.
But, the Republicans push to privatize the Post Office isn’t even a full plan, but one in which the very lucrative postal routes, say Manhattan, go to the most connected crony capitalists and the American people keep funding the routes to far away placing in North Dakota.
But, from reading you, Mr. Tucker I can see you think some Americans are worth more than others.
People should do a little research before running their mouths off. First-class mail is a legally protected monopoly. The use of mailboxes is restricted to USPS. Fedex and UPS aren’t able to compete cost-wise with USPS on things like letters because that’s not what they’ve built their businesses around (if they did, they would be shut down), not to mention their rates aren’t subsidized.
Some of you sound like your saying, in effect, “but if we don’t have a system that steals money from people, we’ll lose out on the benefits that theft provides!” Well, no shit. That’s not the argument.