Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Every Government Agency Serves the Bourgeoisie — Even the Post Office

A recent report revealed that the USPS has been secretly surveilling social media sites and reporting to the Department of Homeland Security. But the bourgeois function of the Post Office didn’t originate with online surveillance.

Olivia Wood

April 23, 2021
Facebook Twitter Share
Photo: Postal Times

“Save the post office!” liberals cried on social media in the months leading up to the 2020 election, as the Trump administration attempted to sabotage mail-in voting efforts. “Blue lives matter! Save the USPS!” chorused a popular series of jokes. The United States Postal Service (USPS) is certainly important, enabling all residents of the United States (in theory) to receive mail for free and send mail at the same rate no matter where they live, six days a week, rain or shine. It nearly always operates at a loss and is rightly considered a valuable service that ought to be run regardless of profit. This has led some to treat the USPS as perhaps the one pure wing of the U.S. government. In fact, when discussing Lenin’s State and Revolution and the role of the bourgeois state in oppressing workers, someone recently asked me, “What about the Post Office?” 

Yes, even the Post Office.

This week, Yahoo News obtained a report showing that the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), “the law enforcement arm” of the Post Office, has been secretly surveilling social media sites for “inflammatory” posts and reporting that information to the Department of Homeland Security. The program is called the Internet Covert Operations Program and is abbreviated as iCOP (of course it is). The report specifically says the program was used to monitor posts relating to the rightwing “Rally for Freedom and Democracy,” a set of anti-lockdown protests on March 20, 2021, but even when programs like this one are initially used to monitor the right, they always end up being used against the Left and oppressed peoples. 

Yahoo reports that multiple national security experts have already expressed confusion and concern as to why social media surveillance activities — which have nothing to do with the mail — would be routed through the USPIS, rather than through the FBI, the NSA, or the Department of Homeland Security. Regardless of why it’s being done through the Post Office, however, this kind of government surveillance of everyday activity should be concerning for everyone, especially given the extremely vague target of any “inflammatory” posts. The iCOP program is a tool for suppressing protests, and it will surely be used to surveil and repress left-wing protests as well, if it hasn’t already.

But the bourgeois function of the Post Office didn’t originate with online surveillance or even with the USPIS. In fact, it’s baked into the creation of the Post Office itself. In 1737, Benjamin Franklin was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia, a position he took advantage of for great personal profit by mailing newspapers from his printing press at no cost to him and sending more than 20,000 personal letters around the world. The improvements he made to the colonial postal system’s efficiency, first as a local postmaster and then the official postmaster of all 13 colonies, directly benefited his own ability to make money, as well as the profits generated by the British Crown. 

Fast communication and transportation of goods are of course also vital for efficient commerce of all kinds, including the slave trade, the sale of goods produced by enslaved people, and the expansion of U.S. imperialism. As National Geographic puts it, “the Post Office helped build an empire, quite literally.” Additionally, mail delivery contracts are sold to private companies — such as railroads and steamboat companies in the past, and airlines now — which means the Post Office feeds into corporations responsible for significant pollution and worker exploitation. The USPS also stopped providing banking services in the 1960s, a move that disproportionately harmed Black and Latinx households while funneling business toward for-profit banks.

This isn’t to say that the USPS is evil or that it should be abolished — the ability for all residents to send and receive mail at relatively low cost compared to for-profit services like FedEx should absolutely be protected, and the ongoing neoliberalization of the Post Office is an attack on the working class. But both the recent exposure of the iCOP surveillance program and the history of the institution show that even valuable government agencies like the Post Office that really do benefit the working class are still part of the bourgeois state, and so ultimately still serve the bourgeoisie. A true post office of the people would be under workers’ control, offer all services free of charge without restrictions on who can use them, and refuse to contract with private companies, which is so unlikely as to be impossible without a workers’ state.

Facebook Twitter Share

Olivia Wood

Olivia is a writer and editor at Left Voice and lecturer in English at the City University of New York (CUNY).

United States

20 Years Since the U.S. Invasion of Iraq: A Reflection from a Socialist in the Heart of Imperialism

A Left Voice member and anti-war activist reflects on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and how he learned to hate U.S. imperialism.

Sam Carliner

March 20, 2023

Train Derailment in Metro Detroit Illustrates That Capitalist Control of the Railroads Is Fundamentally Unsafe

With the capitalists in control of the railroads, they will destroy the environment and poison and kill workers. The catastrophe in East Palestine will not be the last if we don’t nationalize our railroads and put the safety of people and the environment over profit.

Emma Boyhtari

February 28, 2023
East Palestine, Ohio in the distance at night, smoke and fire springing up due to the train derailment.

The Ohio Train Disaster Is on Biden’s Hands

Just months after President Biden and Congress blocked railway workers from striking over dangerous working conditions, the exact type of disaster that workers predicted has come to pass. The fate of East Palestine must be a wake-up call for the labor and climate movements to fight for the nationalization of the railroads under workers’ control.

B.C. Daurelle

February 15, 2023
US President Joe Biden speaks during a State of the Union address with US Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, right, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. Biden is speaking against the backdrop of renewed tensions with China and a brewing showdown with House Republicans over raising the federal debt ceiling.

Biden’s Populist Speech Can’t Cover Up Capitalist Crisis

Biden tried to paint a picture of a United States that has come back stronger after the pandemic. But despite his populist rhetoric and laundry list of policies, none of these measures can address the real needs of the vast majority of the working class and poor who have been exploited and oppressed for much longer than the last two years.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

February 8, 2023

MOST RECENT

Protesters gather during a demonstration on Place de la Concorde in Paris on March 17, 2023, the day after the French government pushed a pensions reform using the article 49.3 of the constitution. - French President's government on March 17, 2023 faced no-confidence motions in parliament and intensified protests after imposing a contentious pension reform without a vote in the lower house. Across France, fresh protests erupted in the latest show of popular opposition to the bill since mid-January.

Battle of the Pensions: Toward a Pre-Revolutionary Moment in France

President Macron's use of article 49.3 to push through an unpopular pension reform bill has opened up an enormous political crisis that has changed the character of the mobilizations against the French government. We are entering a "pre-revolutionary moment" that can change the balance of power between the classes in France.

Juan Chingo

March 21, 2023

It is Possible to Win: The Pension Reform Crisis in France

A French socialist reflects on the way forward after Macron invites Article 49.3 to pass pension reform.

Paul Morao

March 20, 2023

“We are your economy”: Trans Youth Walkout and Speak Out

The following is a speech by a young trans person as part of an action called for by NYC Youth for Trans Rights.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

March 20, 2023
Three tables full of food, with signs hung above them. One says "The People's Pantry: FREE FOOD." Banners hung from the tables say "Free CUNY" and "Cop Free School Zone"

CUNY Administration Cracks Down on Student and Worker-Run Food Pantry

Students and workers opened "The People's Pantry" seven weeks ago as part of a broader anti-austerity campaign at CUNY, leading to several direct confrontations with the administration.

Olivia Wood

March 19, 2023