Mobs Say Down with Post Office

Today, Llewellyn Rockwell of the Ludwig von Mises Institute commented on BHO’s Post Office argument for Healthcare. He points out how in 1917, V. Lenin had also used a comparison to the national Russian Post Office to explain how his plan would work. (The Russian Post Office must have functioned better that ours or I am sure Lenin would have thought better that making that comparison.)

A few quotes from Professor Llewellyn: “How can a private company compete against the government? Simply because government is so terrible at what it does that even a private company that is beaten down and attacked and competed against with all the tax dollars in the world will do better than the government. It is true in mail and it is true in healthcare.” …

“But here is the question that socialists have never been able to answer: if the goal is to get government to operate like a private service, what is the value added by having it provided by the government in the first place? The only reason for a government service is precisely to provide financial support for an operation that is otherwise unsustainable, or else there would be no point in the government's involvement at all.” …

“The right path to healthcare reform is the market path (no subsidies, no monopolies such as drug patents, no licensure, no anything) that tends toward universal distribution at very low prices and relentless improvement in service. The wrong path is to make healthcare run the same way as the post office. Obama seems to favor the latter path, even though he admits that it is the least-well-performing one. This is surely the definition of fanaticism. If the mobs aren't angry, they should be.”

By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Posted on Mises Daily 8/13/09
http://mises.org/story/3646