The real estate effort makes sense because it gives an objective to organize around. In the case I made, I should probably elaborate. I don’t think there are many groups of people wanting to take over mail delivery for profit, or that those groups are terribly committed. I think it more often serves as an ideological punching bag that represents public services in general. The USPS is often cited in arguments for why public healthcare supposedly can never work, for example, despite it’s success in most developed nations. This depends on attacking public services in general. Currently, maintaining this sentiment for the private sector against the public sector is important to the effort to withhold IP of the coronavirus vaccine from the third world. IP laws are often complained about by HN readers, but IP itself is not. This conflict between regulation and anarchy is an eternal contradiction in the entrepreneurial pursuit, but public services which serve working people equally are ideologically beyond the pale, enemies of the entrepreneurial spirit.
Ultimately, WJ Bryan was both a tool of capital and a champion of the masses, but the free silver effort was an the exceptional issue for the reasons you explained.
I think farmers loans are worth mentioning specifically. The fixed ratio was terrible for farmers who had to seasonally borrow money and pay it back with interest.
The only reason people on HN have hate for the post office is they are influenced by capitalists who want another industry to “disrupt.” American oligarchs have been declaring war on public services since the New Deal, and over time American workers have sadly been propagandized to buy into it.
As a result, the U.S. Post Office is not what it used to be (it used to offer banking services!!!) but it’s still one of the best things we have left. Not to mention its glowing record of equal employment.
How do you (and most other people, especially Americans) not realize how unrealistic this is? It’s such a common refrain to say “break `em up!” but it seems as if nobody stops to question why it never happens despite it’s popularity...
These corporations control the government because the same people demanding to “break `em up!” have also been demanding “small government!” for decades on end, which in practice simply means a government that works for the corporate private sector.
The morale of this story is that your solution is no solution at all, and to the extent that it is a solution the means to implement it are nowhere to be found.