Privatise the post office?

Privatisation is dear to the hearts of many. There is a constant refrain that competition is good and public service is bad, and I sometimes have the impression that this is a ,matter faith. The facts, as I experience them, do not support this view. To me everything that has been privatised has got worse: but then I am not a shareholder, and the shareholder view is the only one that counts.

The Royal Mail in the UK has not been privatised.....yet. It has suffered from the introduction of corporate-think in the same way as many public services (think "internal markets") but it has not been actually privatised. Not that it wasn't attempted: but we need a little more softening up.

This article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/29/m...-class-delivery

from the Guardian of 29/4/11 is instructive. But it is particularly interesting to compare the situation described with the TNT "mission and vision".

www.tntpost.com/tntpost/mission_vision/index.asp

I have been wondering why people write mission statements: it is not like anyone believes them. They are patronising, and they are annoying. But they must do something because money is spent on this. It is interesting to read the comments below the Guardian article: admittedly these are presumably Guardian readers and they are said to be lefties. But I don't think they are leftie in any sense I can understand: more decent old fashioned liberal people, perhaps.

It is perfectly plain that the "mission and vision" is a series of outright lies coupled with hurrah words. But the company does not appear to have any idea at all what a postal service is for: they think it for making profit. Well so it is but there is a hole in that sentence. It is for making profit from delivering the mail. They seem to have forgotten the second clause.

Many of the people who champion privatisation are sincere, I assume. Useful idiots, but of the right. They make a fundamental error: they take for granted that which is good, and assume it will be sustained if they change all the rest. And to some extent they are right. Ordinary postmen and women are like ordinary teachers and ordinary public servants in general: indeed like ordinary workers most places. They work around. When they don't have the machinery because of lack of investment they try to work around. When they don't have full staff they set the priorities in line with what the company or the service is supposed to do: and they work around. That can last a long time and it can do a great deal. But it cannot go on forever, and talk of "efficiency" savings is just laughable after years of them. Yet still we are told there is a lot of waste. Well so there is. It is wasteful not to buy in machinery which makes the job easier and quicker - which the article refers to. Public sector workers know this and they know the money comes from the public purse: they have always accepted poor working conditions precisely because they understand this. So they work around.

But what is proposed here strikes me as the same as living in a very poorly looked after house for years and years: then the landlord comes and does it up to a great house: and turfs you out and sells it.

The poor know what "outworking" means. It has a history which goes back to the industrial revolution and perhaps beyond. It means you cannot earn a living wage in a reasonable time and you have no protection whatsoever. Back to the future indeed. Did someone mention Victorian Values?

I believe the whole capitalistic system of profit making is sick. I don't understand how governments can be so blind when introducing privatization. Apparently they somehow believe that private corporations are honest... Governments especially should use more critical thinking when it comes to the well being of the citizens!

You don't believe in a "mixed economy" at all? Fair enough, though I think that is quite a minority view. Not saying it isn't attractive though

But I do not think that governments believe that private corporations are honest: at least not sensible ones. I think they believe that they can be controlled, and I am inclined to agree that they can. However one of my concerns is that the current "wisdom" is that regulation is a bad thing. I happen to believe that the history of civilisation is the history of regulation and so that is looking glass stuff to me. One problem is that the separation of politics and business had become less rigid. At least in this country it has. This was on the back of the ideology of the right. They managed to persuade people that business people had a monopoly on sense and rationality. Then they brought such people in to run public service. As they had no idea what they were about we heard that management is a skill in itself: an amazing proposition, which is nonetheless largely unchallenged. After that they had control over people they did not understand: but their ideology was self fulfilling in many ways: if you take away all the reasons for doing something except the financial ones then people will become more concerned about money. They call that "human nature" but it is very obvious it is not.

But the problem ran both ways: many politicians have not done anything else. They live in a bubble which is increasingly divorced from the lives of the people they are supposed to serve. Their world is made of rich and they are careful to avoid breaching the compartements in their minds. We all do that but unfortunately they have help to maintain the distance, and the rest of us don't so much. Thus we see the rather surprising spectacle of people who are paid an immense amount of money yet defraud their expenses claiming that they do so because they don't get enough in wages: and those same people say that it is reasonable to expect other folk to live on £68 a week and in fact to suggest that this is too high.

I wonder how they reconcile that?

I don't know if I believe in a mixed economy. I don't believe in either private or public control. Control implies that some people tell others what to do. In my view no one can order anyone to do THE right thing. Cause no individual (absolute) leader possesses the knowledge of what is right or wrong. Most private companies are run this way. And maybe the dutch government is a little more democratic, but still some ONE has convinced all politicians that privatization is the way to go. So here again I do not believe in the forces of control.

I do not believe regulation is a bad thing. BUT if regulation is imposed top down it can never have the ethical wisdom of a whole society. If regulations grow from bottom-up then small changes within the regulation create a more socially responsible regulation, which is also ethically accepted by many.

Non the less.. We don't have an anarchic country and it will be hard to change into one. So I would have to make an argument of the present form of governemnt. If governments nowadays decide to privatize certain organisations then they should think more before acting. They should try to investigate most realistic scenarios and add regulations to sustain a healthy economy. The capitalistic rules of engagement follow very simple rules for making profit. Those can be run through a simulator to see what would happen. They don't even have to think for themselves to simulate those scenarios. And with some regulations they can run the program over and over again to come up with the least-problematic regulations. (i refuse to say "best" regulations, because that's immoral )

You believe that some ONE has persuaded politicians and others that privatisation is the way to go? Do you mean that literally?

I am sorry, I intended that sentence symbolically, cause it is impossible to think of ONE person to come up with that idea. But in essence, every idea starts with one person. I don't know if there has been ONE person in politics to convince the rest about privatizing. But if this idea is just imposing itself into the system then I think all politicians should wake up. Because then politicians are acting on a ghost or "spirit" of that time. An illusion. Which is not very wise to follow.

By the way: I do not "believe" in anything, cause believing is claiming something is true. And by claiming something is true you freeze the truth, while the truth evolves and changes all the time. No, I must say: Our perception of the truth changes all the time.

I am not so sure that every idea starts with one person: or at least that is maybe true but all ideas are old really and they are not the product of one mind, by now.

I think politicians are people and so they are subject to the same mysterious processes as all the rest of us: but they are subject to more of them, because all the people with vested interests (all of us, really) are actively trying to persuade them to act in the interests of that group. Those with money are more influential (and sometimes more powerful): but they cannot succeed without the support of at least a sizeable portion of the rest of us. They put a lot of time and effort into gaining that support. But we are all responsible for the outcomes and we cannot duck that.

I believe things: just not the same things over time. But I find I cannot make progress without adopting a position which seems good to me. If I do not risk commitment then I cannot learn because I cannot be shown to be wrong if I do not take a stand. That is one style of learning and it suits me: others have a different approach but this works for me. I choose not blow in the wind and I like to change my mind for cause.

So, in other words, our goal it to vocalize an idea that is so strong it will take hold of many people and change existing regimes?

Not for me. I think that is far, far too ambitious for a board. I think that what I see as useful is just to explore the ideas properly. Iccarus is right to point to Friedman. But these ideas are always there. Fortunately so are the opposite ideas and lots of tangential ones. Each has their time. I have no idea how or why one or another comes to the fore: I would love it if we could make some sense of that. But even if we cannot do that we can at least put an alternative narrative out where we can see it and maybe flesh it out. That is worthwhile even if nothing else is achieved. We cannot expect to do much more here: though it might inform action in other times and places at a later date. The main thing is clear thinking and to get that we need to discuss and challenge each other. Because we are all affected by the social and political climate which is ascendant. It took a long time to achieve the supremacy it has now: but it has changed before and it will change again. Conceptualising the issues is useful in that sense and I think that is part of Iccarus's point (correct me if I am wrong, Iccarus).

So. They sold our post office last week. You could not buy less then £750 worth of shares, so poor people could not get the windfall. And it was a windfall. They sold at £3.30 a share. At the end of the first day they were trading at £4.50. This is what always happens. But you are not to think that it was underpriced, as this article explains

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2...ation-went-well

I repeat a comment I made on that article


Why would that be a good thing? Is there some natural law which determines the right level of return on investment? Does the sky fall if the profit is considered in absolute terms and if it stays the same (perhaps plus inflation in economic good times)? Is there no relation between competitiveness and price? Or is price completely unaffected by profit - it is a one way street? I ask because I keep hearing that wages and costs have to fall to improve competitiveness. I don't seem to hear the same story applied to profit. In what sense is profit not a "cost" or a "wage" by any other name?


I offer this as a very strong contender in the "lies by euphemism" award, in a strong field. It genuinely made me laugh out loud. What a silly man


So they do not even contemplate paying a "fair price" for what they buy. Better hope that consumers don't take the same view of goods they purchase. If all of us only buy stuff sold at a loss, or at the cost of production, we are going to have a lot of bankruptcies shortly. We can't do that and we don't even think we should, for non-essentials, however defined. Nonetheless they were buying a profitable business and I see no reason at all why they would not have bought it at "full value". So I am at sea as to what this buffoon means by


I note he does not spell out what they have to have "a sporting chance" to do? Earn increased returns by improving the service using their skill and judgement? Apparently not that !


Who are the "old" shareholders? Genuine question. I thought it was in public ownership and did not have shareholders before it was sold.


Any evidence for this preposterous assertion?


Oooh! Another re-definition of a perfectly familiar word. When did " be pragmatic" come to mean "bend over and take it up the jaxie" ? I missed that particular linguistic shift