Privatize the USPS? Not in an Era of Crony Capitalism
Giving the markets a greater role in the provision of public services can be good or bad, depending on both the service itself and who’s providing it.
Public or private?
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
President-elect Donald Trump is said to be interested in the privatization of the US Postal Service, a prospect that also appeals to his DOGE project and its allies in Congress. Yet debating this issue — and privatization more generally — is almost pointless without first defining terms. “Privatization” can be good, bad or uncertain.
The best kind of privatization is when private suppliers can replace state provision outright. Consider Poland in the 1980s, when most of the economy was state-owned and state-run. After the fall of communism in 1991, many of those state-owned businesses were replaced with private corporations. Since then, Poland has gone from being a poor country to one with living standards close to those of Western Europe.