Economics and Government

The postal service in the United States was created by government a couple hundred years ago because it was necessary. There was no way a private corporation could have afforded to deliver all the mail and to every address. Today it is still a government owned monopoly but is that necessary? There are other companies out there such as UPS and FedEx that deliver packages to all parts of the country without a problem. This shows that the market can take care of that sort of thing so why are no private firms allowed to deliver first class mail? If government sold the postal service and it became privatized it might even in turn become better. Without being run by government first class mail would be delivered with grater care and concern with pleasing the consumer. As it stands now, in governments control, the service cant be improved through competition with other agencies. Consumers have no choice but to put up with whatever the postal service dishes out.

As I understand it government should be in charge of services that would otherwise be inefficiently taken care of in a regular market economy. This might have been the case for delivering mail a long time ago but the market can handle it today. It seems that this is a sign of just too much unnecessary government involvement in our lives. I believe our government should stick to its basic necessary tasks such as keeping law and order, helping us to maintain clean air, and providing national security. Delivering mail is something we can take care of ourselves.