The Post Office - As An Example Of Socialism

[AlwaysAnarchy]

When reading Lenin's The State and Revolution, I was struck how he described the post office as an "example of socialism in practice" What do we think of that here? Is the post office still, to this day, considered an example of "socialism in practice" or not?

Here is the exact quote:


Originally posted by Lenin
A witty German Social-Democrat of the seventies of the last century called the postal service an example of the socialist economic system. This is very true.

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by "Paul Mattick"
Socialism, to him [Lenin], was in the last instance merely a kind of state-capitalism, after the “model of the German postal service.” And this state capitalism he overtook on his way, for in fact there was nothing else to be overtaken. It was merely a question of who was to be the beneficiary of the state capitalism, and here Lenin gave precedence to none. And so George Bernard Shaw, returning from Russia, was quite correct when, in a lecture before the Fabian Society in London, he stated that “the Russian communism is nothing more than the putting into practice of the Fabian programme which we have been preaching the last forty years.”

Lenin believed businesses should be public enterprises owned by the state and operated for the public.

[which doctor]

No, it's not an example of "socialism in practice" the postal workers do not own the means of production whatsoever.

I think you may find Lysander Spooner interesting though. He was an individualist anarchist who started up his own postal company to fight the USPS monopoly.

http://www.lysanderspooner.org/
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/STAMP3.htm
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/STAMP2.htm

[Janus]

Is the post office still, to this day, considered an example of "socialism in practice" or not?
No, the post office is a federal branch so workers have even less say than in an actual corporate setting. Furthermore, these federal workers can't even unionize (in the US at least).