South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Writing in The Atlantic, historian Joseph Adelman points out that “the postal service is a civic institution, not a business.”

Understanding the core mission of the Post Office — as part of a communications infrastructure for political debate and civic participation — should lead us to reframe the questions we ask about the future of the USPS. Making changes to the USPS’s structure are clearly necessary in order to ensure its ability to meet its obligations. But the historical context should lead us to ask much larger questions about government’s role in protecting the free circulation of information.
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In the 18th century, the government committed itself to guaranteeing the free flow of information throughout the nation as part of a project to ensure mass participation in civic life, linking the Post Office with the protection of a free press. The decline in mail volume points to a certain inevitability about the commercial success of the USPS. But more broadly we must carefully consider the value of publicly owned, freely available channels of communication. Should the Post Office cease to exist, we will lose the last public guarantor of free communication in the United States.