Viewpoints : ‘McPost Office’ Deserves a Stamp of Disapproval

With the glue not yet dry on the 30-cent stamp, greedy privatizers are already planning to take over the Postal Service. Never mind the intent of the Founding Fathers, who wisely provided for a government-owned and -operated mail delivery system. Every freebooter from the Reason Foundation to the American Enterprise Institute now calls for Washington to turn the privateers loose on Ben Franklin’s creation. Not content with the privatization of municipal bus lines and other public services, they want the post office run like a fast-food outlet. What would the McDonaldization of the nation’s oldest government agency bring?

It would certainly solve the youth unemployment problem, if there is one. In keeping with sound, fast-food hiring practices, the postal system would be staffed by teen-agers, at the sub-minimum wage of $4 per hour. If it proved impossible to find enough kids to run the system, senior citizens could be recruited. Instead of non-productive morning walks to stay in shape, they could be put on the streets delivering mail. No fancy mail vans for them. Also no benefits, no unions, no nonsense.

That 30-cent stamp would only get a letter in motion. To have it delivered, the recipient might have to pay another fee. In that respect, the privatized post office could resemble a local cable television franchise. For example: basic delivery at $12.50 per month might entitle the addressee to a three-times-a-week delivery of six first-class letters, two magazines and an unlimited amount of junk mail. Two, four or six additional dollars a month would increase deliveries to four, five or six times a week. Or the resident could sign up for the premium package that included Sunday delivery and unlimited first-class arrivals. (That price would be quoted only upon request.)

For cheapskates who didn’t want to pay for delivery, it might be possible to call at the local post office to pick up one’s mail in person, as in the old “general delivery” system.

But the fees would only pay for delivering the mail. To get the letter on its way would still require a stamp. That’s where the wonders of privatization would come into play. Instead of a uniform 30-cent stamp issued by Uncle Sam, each of several regional private postal companies could be entitled to print their own stamps. To keep the cost as low as possible, they wouldn’t display a U.S. flag on the first-class stamp. Rather, each company might sell space on its stamps to commercial advertising companies who in turn would use that space for ad campaigns to promote soap, cigarettes, lotteries, deodorant or anything else whose logo could fit on a stamp.

But not all first-class mail would move for 30 cents. It would depend on the destination. What logic dictates that a birthday card to Grandma, carried from Maine to California, should go for the same price as a locally mailed and delivered credit-card bill? Patrons would pay for what they got.

Competition dictates that the great quantities of mail headed for New York or Chicago ought to be transported less expensively than mail destined for Fargo, N.D. In fact, there is no reason that Pt. Roberts, Wash., situated at the end of a God-forsaken peninsula on Puget Sound, should have any delivery at all. Well, maybe at Christmas time.

As Christmas approached and the volume of mail increased, rates could rise correspondingly, in the same way that oil companies raise the price of gasoline just before Labor Day. Airline style, those who bought pre-stamped Christmas cards 90 days in advance for delivery three weeks before Christmas on a Saturday, might realize substantial savings on postage for their greetings.

During the slack period of midwinter when volume fell, all regional postal providers would cut rates. “Frequent-mailer” plans, for those who sent out a sizable volume all year long, would include upgrade privileges, permitting second- and third-class mail to ride in the first-class pouch. In a decidedly pro-business approach, the price of junk mail could fall sharply. This would encourage businesses to increase the volume of their easy-to-deliver mail, since it is simply marked “occupant.” The first-, second- and third-class categories could disappear entirely. Instead, there would be a business rate and an individual rate. Guess who would pay the most?

The McDonaldization of the postal system is only a matter of time. In this decentralized, deregulated, desocialized society of the post-Reagan years, there could be no finer example of the “Greed is Good” slogan. Surely no one believes that delivering the mail should be more important than making money?