Protection from competition has allowed the Postal Service to pass wage increases along to its patrons in the form of higher rates - a labor union's dream come true. The result has been an escalation of postal salaries beyond any level justified by productivity or market realities. The Postal Service and its unions justify this state of affairs by invoking an array of arguments based mainly on sentimentality and unsubstantiated claims about the supposed disruptive effects of competition. If we privatize the mail, they claim, we will no longer be able to send a letter anywhere in the country for a uniform price. Closely examined, however, these arguments make no sense.
Letter mail is simply a message service.
There are other message services, such as voice and fax telephone, radio, television, couriers, newspaper inserts, electronic funds transfer and Federal Express. By ending the Postal Service's monopoly, Congress would simply be freeing private enterprise to deliver letter mail, just as it provides other kinds of messages services. We don't need a state monopoly for the delivery of fax messages or newspapers, and we don't need one for the delivery of letter mail. It's time to privatize the Postal Service. David G. Tuerck is executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute and chairman and professor of economics at Suffolk University.