My apologies for the dearth of posts lately. I’m not sure what’s behind this most recent bout of writer’s block, but it’s been pretty fierce. I have been posting shorter items on Facebook and Twitter, however, so please check them out if you haven’t already.
Something did come up this weekend that I thought was worth exploring a bit. We’re planning to take a family trip to Bolivia for Christmas this year, so we’ve started working through our to-do list. Even though we’ve got a full six months before the trip, most of the items on that list involve dealing with various government agencies. And knowing how slowly those agencies operate, it seems that time is quickly slipping away.
High on the list of priorities is to renew my daughter’s passport. As I’m sure everyone is aware, all subjects are required to have a valid passport whenever they travel beyond the borders of the United States, regardless of their age. My daughter, for example, is six years old, and it’s vitally important that she have the proper documentation. That way our government can distinguish her from all the other six-year olds who, for all anyone knows, might be Al Qaeda terrorists.
The first step in the passport renewal process was to fill out the paperwork. The renewal form itself is two pages long, and must be accompanied by the original expired passport, an original birth certificate, photocopies of both sides of both parents’ driver’s licenses, and payment for the application fees. Check.
The second task was to find out where to file all this paperwork. This turned out to be a bit more difficult than I first thought. Even though my daughter has been issued a passport before, there is no renewal process available either online or by mail for a minor. Both parents must appear in person before the duly authorized potentate, with child in tow. Since my wife and I both work, we needed to find a passport agency that was open evenings or weekends. That ruled out the Dallas Regional Passport Agency, which is only open from 8am to 3pm, Monday through Friday. It also ruled out the thirteen closest US Post Office locations, most of which don’t accept passport applications. The few that do only process applications from 9am to 4pm, Monday through Friday.
Not to worry, though. The USPS website informed us that the post office in Bedford accepts passport applications on Saturday, from 10am to 12pm. Best of all, no appointment is required. So we loaded up the family truckster Saturday morning and headed out to Bedford, which is about a thirty-minute trip from our house. Arriving promptly at 10am, we walked in to discover the counter was still shuttered. A few other customers came in behind us to conduct some postal business of their own. For some reason, none of us were particularly surprised that the US Post Office was not open right on schedule. No problem, though. We could hear people behind the wall placing mail in the PO boxes, so we knew that in no time at all someone would raise the gate and we could all get started.
Or so we thought. A few more minutes passed, and no one appeared to open up or to offer any explanations. Since we could hear the post office personnel behind the wall, we could only assume that they could hear us as well (or see us on the CCTV monitor). And as loud as my kids were that morning, there should have been no mistaking the fact that the post office had customers waiting. Still, nothing happened.
Exasperated, my wife found an after-hours bell to ring (even though according to the post office’s schedule, we weren’t there after hours). An employee opened the window and told us that, despite what was posted online and the hours of operation listed on the building’s front door, that particular post office is actually closed on Saturdays. Besides, if we wanted a passport application processed, we’d have to go to the main site in Irving. They don’t do that at the Bedford location.
I was not happy.
Because of this, I have to take a couple hours off work tomorrow in order to pick up my daughter from daycare, bring her to the Irving post office, meet my wife (who also has to take off from work), submit the documentation, return my daughter to daycare, and then get back to the office. All so we can obtain a document that we shouldn’t even need in the first place - and pay for the privilege to boot.
Naturally, I couldn’t help but think the free market would manage this whole thing a bit better than the US Post Office does. It’s hard to imagine that a private firm, whose revenue actually depended on pleasing its customers, would create such a byzantine and inconvenient process for something as simple as the renewal of a form. I have to believe that a private company would offer more convenient hours, online renewals, or any number of other ways to streamline the process. And I’m absolutely certain that a private company would at least open its doors on time to serve paying customers.
This is not to say that all free market options would be perfect. But life is not a game of perfect, and we can only compare two options on the basis of their merits relative to one another - not to some idealized Nirvana state. I’ve certainly had unpleasant customer experiences with private firms from time to time, but those have been the exception, rather than the rule. My recent frustration with the post office, however, is no isolated event. It is part and parcel of any “service” provided by government, and is not something that can be remedied simply by “electing better people” or “conducting a blue-ribbon panel review.” The inefficiency and ham-fisted nature of the government relative to the free market is simply a function of the knowledge problem and the public choice problem, which are completely unavoidable in any organization that derives its livelihood from coercion rather than from voluntary exchange.
Given all this, it should be abundantly clear that the market offers better choices and delivers better results than any government agency. So why would anyone want government to do more than it does now? Do they really believe, despite all of their own direct experience to the contrary, that somehow the next new bureaucratic nightmare will magically be better? Do they really want their next visit to the doctor to resemble their last visit to the post office? I certainly don’t.
I’ve accepted the fact that most of the deep theoretical and ethical issues we libertarians raise often fall on deaf ears. So let’s put the high-powered math aside for a moment and boil it all down to something that should be understandable to all. The next time someone suggests that the government simply isn’t doing enough in this or that area, ask him to compare his worst experience at Target to his best experience at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Which experience does he want more of in his life and which does he want less?
Something did come up this weekend that I thought was worth exploring a bit. We’re planning to take a family trip to Bolivia for Christmas this year, so we’ve started working through our to-do list. Even though we’ve got a full six months before the trip, most of the items on that list involve dealing with various government agencies. And knowing how slowly those agencies operate, it seems that time is quickly slipping away.
High on the list of priorities is to renew my daughter’s passport. As I’m sure everyone is aware, all subjects are required to have a valid passport whenever they travel beyond the borders of the United States, regardless of their age. My daughter, for example, is six years old, and it’s vitally important that she have the proper documentation. That way our government can distinguish her from all the other six-year olds who, for all anyone knows, might be Al Qaeda terrorists.
The first step in the passport renewal process was to fill out the paperwork. The renewal form itself is two pages long, and must be accompanied by the original expired passport, an original birth certificate, photocopies of both sides of both parents’ driver’s licenses, and payment for the application fees. Check.
The second task was to find out where to file all this paperwork. This turned out to be a bit more difficult than I first thought. Even though my daughter has been issued a passport before, there is no renewal process available either online or by mail for a minor. Both parents must appear in person before the duly authorized potentate, with child in tow. Since my wife and I both work, we needed to find a passport agency that was open evenings or weekends. That ruled out the Dallas Regional Passport Agency, which is only open from 8am to 3pm, Monday through Friday. It also ruled out the thirteen closest US Post Office locations, most of which don’t accept passport applications. The few that do only process applications from 9am to 4pm, Monday through Friday.
Not to worry, though. The USPS website informed us that the post office in Bedford accepts passport applications on Saturday, from 10am to 12pm. Best of all, no appointment is required. So we loaded up the family truckster Saturday morning and headed out to Bedford, which is about a thirty-minute trip from our house. Arriving promptly at 10am, we walked in to discover the counter was still shuttered. A few other customers came in behind us to conduct some postal business of their own. For some reason, none of us were particularly surprised that the US Post Office was not open right on schedule. No problem, though. We could hear people behind the wall placing mail in the PO boxes, so we knew that in no time at all someone would raise the gate and we could all get started.
Or so we thought. A few more minutes passed, and no one appeared to open up or to offer any explanations. Since we could hear the post office personnel behind the wall, we could only assume that they could hear us as well (or see us on the CCTV monitor). And as loud as my kids were that morning, there should have been no mistaking the fact that the post office had customers waiting. Still, nothing happened.
Exasperated, my wife found an after-hours bell to ring (even though according to the post office’s schedule, we weren’t there after hours). An employee opened the window and told us that, despite what was posted online and the hours of operation listed on the building’s front door, that particular post office is actually closed on Saturdays. Besides, if we wanted a passport application processed, we’d have to go to the main site in Irving. They don’t do that at the Bedford location.
I was not happy.
Because of this, I have to take a couple hours off work tomorrow in order to pick up my daughter from daycare, bring her to the Irving post office, meet my wife (who also has to take off from work), submit the documentation, return my daughter to daycare, and then get back to the office. All so we can obtain a document that we shouldn’t even need in the first place - and pay for the privilege to boot.
Naturally, I couldn’t help but think the free market would manage this whole thing a bit better than the US Post Office does. It’s hard to imagine that a private firm, whose revenue actually depended on pleasing its customers, would create such a byzantine and inconvenient process for something as simple as the renewal of a form. I have to believe that a private company would offer more convenient hours, online renewals, or any number of other ways to streamline the process. And I’m absolutely certain that a private company would at least open its doors on time to serve paying customers.
This is not to say that all free market options would be perfect. But life is not a game of perfect, and we can only compare two options on the basis of their merits relative to one another - not to some idealized Nirvana state. I’ve certainly had unpleasant customer experiences with private firms from time to time, but those have been the exception, rather than the rule. My recent frustration with the post office, however, is no isolated event. It is part and parcel of any “service” provided by government, and is not something that can be remedied simply by “electing better people” or “conducting a blue-ribbon panel review.” The inefficiency and ham-fisted nature of the government relative to the free market is simply a function of the knowledge problem and the public choice problem, which are completely unavoidable in any organization that derives its livelihood from coercion rather than from voluntary exchange.
Given all this, it should be abundantly clear that the market offers better choices and delivers better results than any government agency. So why would anyone want government to do more than it does now? Do they really believe, despite all of their own direct experience to the contrary, that somehow the next new bureaucratic nightmare will magically be better? Do they really want their next visit to the doctor to resemble their last visit to the post office? I certainly don’t.
I’ve accepted the fact that most of the deep theoretical and ethical issues we libertarians raise often fall on deaf ears. So let’s put the high-powered math aside for a moment and boil it all down to something that should be understandable to all. The next time someone suggests that the government simply isn’t doing enough in this or that area, ask him to compare his worst experience at Target to his best experience at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Which experience does he want more of in his life and which does he want less?
2 comments:
There are no better recruiting tools for the Libertarian Party than:
1) The U.S. Post Office
2) The Department Of Motor Vehicles
3) The Richland Hills TX City Planning Department
WS,
Good to hear from you again! Hope you're doing well. I like your list. You might want to add the VA to the list. Check out this story.
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