In 2018, right-wing commentator Dave Rubin went on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Rubin, at that point, was calling himself a libertarian. Rogan asked him about it, and he started going on about how the government doesn’t do anything right.
When Rubin started listing off examples, Rogan objected:
Rubin: Do they do the Post Office well? No! Like, what do they do well?
Rogan: They do the Post Office pretty good, actually.
Rubin: But guess what, if the Post Office closed tomorrow, you’ll be alright, you’d still get mail. Amazon would. . .
Rogan: It would suck.
As the conversation went on, Rogan raised the everyman concern that “it would cost a lot more” and Rubin hand-waved this away, insisting that “competition would kick in.” Between “UPS and Amazon and FedEx and drones,” the invisible hand of the free market would surely take care of any problems.
Rogan’s incredulity about this claim was probably shared by most of his audience. At the time, Rubin’s fantasy about how even the Post Office could be privatized without this leading to any problems was just an amusing illustration of how a fringe ideology like libertarianism can make people argue for bizarre things.
Yet yesterday, president-elect Donald Trump confirmed that he’s eyeballing a plan to privatize the United States Postal Service (USPS). He said he’s “considering it,” and that it’s “not the worst idea” he’s heard.
If that’s true, he must be hearing some truly awful ideas.
The very design of the postal service is tied to its public mission. Indeed, common…
Auteur: Ben Burgis
