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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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Right? When did we start becoming concerned with a public service being "profitable"? I've heard this applied to the US Postal Service a lot recently.
"The postal service is losing money!"
No, the postal service costs money. It's a service. It doesn't aim to make a profit. It costs money, and we are in turn rendered a service that is useful.
I swear people are delusional.
Conservatives want to kill the postal service because it competes with for profit services they own and invest in. See: DeJoy
Which of course is stupid, because USPS is actually great and provides a much better and more reliable service than any private competitor even in its current underfunded state.
Yet nobody ever expects the road system to turn a profit. Why should trains be any different?
I first remember it becoming an issue when a failed businessman turned president wanted to run the country like one of his failed businesses.
I remember Postal Service profitability being a political issue under the second Bush, too. Trump didn't start that. He probably even benefited from the previous rounds because he bought a historic post office in DC when it was sold off and he turned it into a hotel. That's the same hotel where people stayed during his presidency to curry favor with him.
You want to put pressure on these things to make them more cost effecient. You're in a capitalist system which does that job very well. But since this is not really a replaceable company, the government has to own these companies until they go public.
Late 80s, early 90s, with the rise of the rise of the Chicago School of neoliberalism.