Otto von Bismarck and the German Post Office

Page 154-163: Otto von Bismarck and the German Post Office

One must remember that during the late nineteenth century, even the direct heirs of Marx's Communist Party had largely abandoned the idea of seizing control of the government by force, since this no longer seemed necessary; in a Europe in peace and witnessing rapid technological progress, they felt it should be possible to create a social revolution through peaceful, electoral means.

Germany was one of the places were such parties were most successful. Even though Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the great mastermind behind the creation of the German state, allowed his parliament only limited powers, he was confounded by the rapid rise of workers' parties, and continually worried of the prospect of a Socialist majority, or a possible Paris commune-style uprising in his new united Germany. His reaction to Socialist electoral success from 1878 was twofold: on the one hand to ban the Socialist party, trade unions, and leftist newspapers; on the other, when this proved ineffective (Socialist candidates continued to run, and win, as independents), to create a top-down alternative to the free schools, workers' associations, friendly societies, libraries, theaters, and the larger process of building socialism from below. This took the form of a program of social insurance (for unemployment, health and disability, etc.), free education , pension, ansd so forth—much of it watered-down versions of policies that had been part of the Socialist platform, but in every case, carefully purged of any democratic, participatory elements. In private, at least, he was utterly candid about describing these efforts as a "bribe", an effort to buy out working-class loyalties to his conservative nationalist project. When left-wing regimes did later take power, the template had already been established, and almost invariably, they took the same top-down approach, incorporating locally organized clinics, libraries, mutual banking initiatives, workers education centers, and the like into the administrative structure of the state.

In germany, the real model for the new administrative structure was, curiously, the post office—though when one understands the history of the postal service, it makes a great deal of sense. The post office was, essentially, one of the first attempts to apply top-down, military form of organization to the public good. historically, postal services first emerged from the organization of armies and empires. They were originally ways of conveying field reports and orders over long distances; later, by extension, a means of keeping the resulting empires together. Herodotus' famous quote about Persian imperical messengers, with their evenly spaced posts with fresh horses, which he claimed allowed the swiftest travel on earth: "Neither snow nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" still appears over the entrance to the Central Post Office building inn New York, opposite Penn Station. The Roman Empire had a similar system, and pretty much all armies operated with postal courier systems until Napoleon adopted semaphore in 1805.

One of the great innovations in the eighteenth- and especially nineteenth-century governance was to expand what had once been military courier systems into the basis for an emerging civil service whose primary purpose was to provide services for the public. It happened first in commerce, and then expanded as the commercial classes also began to use post for personal and political correspndence—until finally it was being used by just about everyone. Before long, in many of the emerging nation-states in europe and the americas, half the government budget was spent on—and more than half the civil service employed in—the postal service.

in germany, one could even make the argument that the nation was created, more than anything else, by the post office.

Mark Twain, who lived briefly in Berlin between 1891 and 1892, was so taken by it that he composed one of his only known non-satirical essays "Postal Service", just to celebrate its wondrous efficiency. Nor was he the only foreigner to be so impressed. just a few months before the outbreak of the Russian revolution, vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote:

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. At present the postal service is a business organized on the lines of a state-capitalist monopoly. imperialism is gradually transforming all trusts into organizations of a similar type ...

To organize the whole national economy on the lines of the postal service, so that technicians, foremen, bookeepers, as well as all officials, shall receive salaries no higher than a "workman's wage", all under the control and leadership of the armed proletariat—this is our immediate aim.

So therE you have it. The organization of the Soviet Union was directly modeled on that of the German postal service.

The vision of a potential future paradise emerging from within the post office was not confined to Europe. Indeed, the country that was soon to emerge as Germany's chief rival for global influence, the United States, was also held out as a model for a new type of civilization, and the efficiency of its own Post Service was considered prima facie evidence. Already in the 1830s, Tocqueville had been startled by the size of the postal and the sheer volume of letters being moved about even on the frontier. During one journey through kentucky to Michigan he noted: "There is an astonishing circulation of letters and newspapers among these savage woods", far more, he calculated, than even the most populous and commercial province of France. In the words of one later historian of the American Republic:

Americans would soon make their postal system larger than the postal system of either Britain or France. By 1816 the postal system had over thirty-three hundred offices, employing nearly 70 percent of the entire federal civilian workforce. The amount of mail increased just as quickly. In the year 1790 the postal system had carried only three hundred thousand letters, one for every fifteen person in the country. By 1815 it transmitted nearly seven and a half million letters during the year, which was about one for every person ... And, unlike the situation in Great Britain and other European nations, the mail was transmitted without government surveillance or control.

In fact, for much of the century, from the perspective of a majority of Americans, the postal service effectively was the Federal government. By 1831, its staff already far outnumbered that of all other branches of government combined, it was substantially larger than the army, and for small-town dwellers, postal employees were the only Federal officials they were ever likely to meet.

In Europe, the United States was at that time itself seen a kind of utopian experiment, with its rejection of laissez-faire economics, and widespread reliance on coopertives and government-sponsored projects and tariff protections. It was only with the rise of corporate capitalism after the Civil War that the United States adopted something closer to the German model of bureaucratic capitalism. When it did, the post office model came to be seen by Populists and especially Progressives, as the major viable alternative. Again, the forms of a new, freer, more rational society seemed to be emerging within the very structure of oppression itself. In the United States, the term "postalization"—a unique American coinage for nationalization (and one which has, significantly, since completely disappeared from the language). Yet at the same time as Weber and Lenin were invoking the German post office as a model for the future, American Progressives were assuming that even private businesses would be more efficient were it run like the post office, and scoring many victories for postalization, such as the nationalization of the once-private subway, commuter, and interstate train systems, which in major American cities have remained in public hands ever since.

[ ... ]

Yet at the very same time that symbolic war was being waged on the Postal Service—as it was descending in the popular imagination into a place of madness, degradation, and violence—sometimes remarkably similar to the turn-of-the century infatuation with the Postal Service is happening again. Let us summarize the story so far:

A new communication technology develops out of the military.
It spreads rapidly, radically reshaping everyday life.
It develops a reputation for dazzling efficiency.
Since it operates on non-market principles, it is quickly seized on by radicals as the first stirrings of a future, non-capitalist system already developing within the shell of the old.
Despite this, it quickly becomes a medium, too, for government surveillance and the dissemination of endless forms of advertising and unwanted paperwork.

Put it in these terms, it should be obvious what I am referring to. This is pretty much exactly the story of the Internet. What is email, after all, but a giant, globe-spanning, electronic, super-efficient Post Office? Has it not, too, created a sense of a new, remarkably effective form of cooperative economy emerging from within the shell of capitalism itself—even as it has deluged us with scams, spam, and commercial offers, and allowed the government to spy on us in new and creative ways?