ainrialai

Hello, Dr. Graeber. I was wondering, where in the world do you think the next anarchist society may be? Latin America seems focused on democratic socialism (not that I'll complain about that), the U.S. and most of Europe seem too affluent (not that I won't try), and I don't know much about modern anarchist movements in Africa or Asia. With the unrest in Greece and Spain and Egypt, could one of those potentially have such a movement? I know in /r/anarchism I often see things about anarchist movements in these countries, but I really don't know how significant they are.

The postal service is also very efficient. UPS and Fedex don't want to compete with them for letter-carrying, because they simply can't. They're self-sufficient funding-wise. The only reason USPS has funding/efficiency issues is because government officials with this warped pro-privatization philosophy have put undue burdens on them, like requiring them to have ridiculous cash-on-hand requirements that would sink any private business. The rest of the federal government also "borrows" from its surplus and doesn't repay it, then people turn around and report on the USPS's debts without counting these. The Postal Service also provides good service while having a workforce with public benefits and private workers' rights (thanks to the 1970 postal workers' strike) and good unions.

A large-scale, well-coordinated enterprise not trying to extract value for profit but constantly reinvesting that value into the service can actually work. Shockingly. It just doesn't profit capital-owners, so they want to dismantle it. Quality of mail service would plummet and cost of service would spike if the Postal Service was abolished, but profits would rise and that's all that matters to these people.