In our modern political discourse, we are constantly told a single, unyielding piece of dogma: the private sector is always more efficient, and if you want something run properly, you should hand it over to private investors. We are told that public education, public health, and public infrastructure are “bloated, failing taxpayer burdens” that need to be privatized, streamlined, and optimized for profit.
But on August 12, 2026, let’s run a simple, common-sense logical test on this idea using the humblest of objects: the United States Postal Service stamp.
Right now, a single postage stamp costs the exact same price whether you are mailing a letter three blocks down in downtown Chicago, or sending that same letter across 1,000 miles of rugged, snowy wilderness to a remote, isolated cabin in North Dakota.
If you handed the mail system over to a purely profit-driven, private-equity-run corporation, how would that pricing likely work?
The answer is fairly predictable: the stamp in Chicago would likely stay cheap, while the stamp to North Dakota would carry a hefty “last-mile delivery surcharge.” A private company would face pressure to cut “unprofitable” rural routes and concentrate on the most efficient, profitable urban centers.
The USPS exists because of a fairly straightforward, logical idea: some things are important enough to the cohesion, survival, and basic dignity of a society that they shouldn’t be run purely for profit.
A public utility isn’t “inefficient” simply because it doesn’t turn a big profit margin, its goal is service, not accumulation. When you evaluate public education, Medicare, or the mail through a narrow lens of pure profit margins, you miss the point. Handing our basic public services entirely over to private corporations doesn’t automatically make them “better”; it can just turn a shared public right into an expensive private luxury.
