You may not want crony capitalists delivering your mail

By Tyler Cowen / Bloomberg Opinion

President-elect Donald Trump is said to be interested in the privatization of the U.S. 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.

Privatization is not the only reason, of course, but it was an essential part of the story. When it comes to food and consumer products, for instance, it is much better to let the market operate.

But Poles did not privatize everything. They generally left water companies and electricity providers in the public sector, for example. This is the second category of privatizations: those that are uncertain in their impact.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-you-may-not-want-crony-capitalists-delivering-your-mail/