First Class: Open Media Series

CONTENTS

Foreword by Ralph Nader

Introduction

CHAPTER 1: PRIVATIZATION

- The Postal Monopoly

- Service First

- Eliminating Government

CHAPTER 2: DEREGULATION

- Network Industries

- Foreign Post Offices

- Nineteenth-Century America

- Profit as King

CHAPTER 3: DEMOCRACY

- Founding Principles

- Newspapers and Magazines

- Books and Nonprofits

- Vote-by-Mail

CHAPTER 4: COMMUNITY

- Heart of the Community

- Closing the Hub

- Relocation

- History and Identity

CHAPTER 5: CUTBACKS

- Mail Volume

- Cutting Service

- Major Mailers

- The Great Recession

- Service Matters

CHAPTER 6: COMPETITORS

- Undermining Delivery

- Corporate Power

- Postal Package Delivery

- Auctioning Away Trust

CHAPTER 7: WORKERS

- Postal Heroes

- The Postal Workplace

- Rising Inequality

CHAPTER 8: GOVERNANCE

- Reorganization

- Postal Governance

- Governance Reform

- Post Office Consumer Action Group

CHAPTER 9: The Future

- Essenital Infrastructure

- Spurring Innovation

- Tomorrow's Post Offices

- Postal Banking

- Our Postal Commonwealth

Notes

Index

About the Author

Christopher W. Shaw is an author, historian, and policy analyst. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic (University of Chicago Press, 2019) and Preserving the People’s Post Office(Essential Books, 2006). His research on the history of banking, money, labor, agriculture, social movements, and the postal system has been published in the following academic journals: Journal of Policy History, Journal of Social History, Agricultural History, Enterprise & Society, Kansas History, and Journalism History. Shaw was formerly a project director at the Center for Study of Responsive Law. He has worked on a number of policy issues, including the privatization of government services, health and safety regulations, and electoral reform. He has appeared in such media outlets as the Associated Press, National Public Radio, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, New York Post,Village Voice, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Buffalo News, among others. He lives in Berkeley, CA.

Named by The Atlantic as one of the hundred most influential figures in American history, and by Time and Life magazines as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century, Ralph Nader has helped us drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments for more than four decades. Nader was instrumental in the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC), and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). Many lives have been saved by Nader's involvement in the recall of millions of unsafe consumer products, including defective motor vehicles, and in the protection of laborers and the environment. By starting dozens of citizen groups, Ralph Nader has created an atmosphere of corporate and governmental accountability. Nader's recent books include Breaking Through Power with City Lights, Unstoppable, and The Good Fight. His Animal Envy, A Parable was published by Seven Stories Press in the fall of 2016. Nader writes a syndicated column, has his own radio show, and gives lectures and interviews year round.