First Class: The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat

(Paperback)

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• 2020s presidential election, along with the COVID-19 outbreak, exposed the essential role that the U.S. postal system plays in American society, the electoral process, and our national well-being.
• The pandemic permanently changed how we work. Many will continue to work from home even after vaccines are distributed.
• As a result, our dependence on the mail will remain a huge part of daily living. Enormous numbers of people rely on mail to receive stimulus checks, medicine, information, mail ballots and the numerous goods were now ordering. (Online shopping has gone through the roof!)
• With a major election coming up in 2022, the post office will remain in the news given our continued reliance on mail-in ballots.
• The book is timely in addressing Bidens policy choices for the U.S. Postal Service.
• This includes: a discussion about the financial pressures placed on the USPS to maintain universal service; how to preserve the postal infrastructure to protect voting rights; and how to make banking services and the internet more broadly accessible.
• This book is a natural fit for activist booksellers at independent stores who were passionate about the #BoxedOut campaign and the importance of the USPS to their business.
• Younger audiences have used social media platforms, such as Tik Tok, to display respectful and playful portrayals of mail carriers. We're seeing this in glossy magazines, as well.
• Book will appeal to those who celebrate the USPSs egalitarian mission to serve all equally irrespective of race, class, sex, or residency status.
• The book will appeal to those invested in workers' rights and unions. The American Postal Workers Union has endorsed this book and we will work with them to spread awareness about this project.
• The book was commissioned by Ralph Nader and the Center for Responsive Law as the centerpiece of their forthcoming advocacy and education campaign to save the US postal system, which will be timed to launch in conjunction with the release of the book.
• Nader & the Center for Responsive Law are sponsoring the mailing of copies to all 535 members of Congress, along with union leaders, media, and influencers.

Reviews

Praise for First Class:

"The United States Postal Service has been targeted for privatization (read: dismantlement) by conservative Republicans for decades. In his new book, Shaw convincingly explains why this would have tragic consequences for the future of democracy itself. Shaws prose is fresh and accessible, and his arguments are cogent and convincing. Reading this book will give readers a new appreciation for the value of the humble post office."Booklist

"Shaws First Class comes at a time when integral institutions are under attack. It is perhaps the most powerful call to save the USPS that this author has ever seen. The book is about what many might consider a mundane subject (postage) but is a crucial read for anyone interested in fighting for democracy, decency, and egalitarianism."Countercurrents

"Selling off valuable properties, buildings that the taxpayers paid for, is just one of the ways corporate interests and political ideologues are dismantling the Postal Service, Christopher W. Shaw argues in First Class. The push to take the Postal Service from public to private hands is steady and unrelenting and has serious implications for democracy. Shaw traces the essential role of the Post Office ever since Benjamin Franklin served as the countrys first postmaster general. He details the fights to preserve it and to ensure it remains an essential component of democracy."Berkeleyside

"Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, First Class is an essential and unreservedly recommended addition to community, college, and university library Political Science and Contemporary Social Issues collections. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of students, academia, political activists, governmental policy makers, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in protecting our U.S. Constitution from all enemies foreign and domesticthe latter especially with specific reference to our postal system."Midwest Book Review

"The Postal Service is the crown jewel of the American experiment, our most efficient, trusted and beloved public service. With First Class: The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat, Christopher Shaw makes a brilliant case for polishing the USPS up and letting it shine in the 21st century."John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation and author of Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis

"First Class is essential reading for all postal workers and for our allies who seek to defend and strengthen our public Postal Service."Mark Dimondstein, President, American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO

"Christopher Shaw makes the case for the importance of the Postal Service to democracy in the United States. He argues compellingly that we should be looking to rebuild it, rather than tear it down and privatize it."Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of Rigged

"The 'Save the Post Office' movement has long needed a definitive manifesto, and now it has one. Christopher Shaw's First Class shows how special interests and anti-government, anti-union ideologues have promoted a scarcity myththe country cant afford a first-class postal systemto justify cost-cutting measures like outsourcing, closing post offices and slowing down the mail. Piece by piece, an essential national infrastructure is being dismantled without our consent. Shaw makes an eloquent case for why the post office is worth saving and why, for the sake of American democracy, it must be saved."Steve Hutkins, founder/editor of Save the Post Office and Professor of English at New York University

"Christopher W. Shaw's First Class: The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat makes a passionate but well-argued case for a healthy USPS. Shaw organizes his methodical argument around decades of attacks on the USPS; in doing so, he effectively refutes the flawed (and often anti-democratic) cases for privatization and deregulation. The USPS is essential for a democratic American society; thank goodness we have this new book from Christopher W. Shaw explaining why."Danny Caine, author of Save the USPS and owner of the Raven Book Store, Lawrence, KS

"Shaw's excellent analysis of the Postal Service and its vital role in American Democracy couldn't be more timely. As the current postmaster general is about to implement a ten-year plan that will eliminate all airmail service, greatly reduce delivery times, and cut hours and available services at post offices, it is important to be reminded that a fully functional postal service is essential for elections, for delivery of life-saving medicines, for assistance when communities are dislocated in times of disaster and for rural community identity First Class should serve as a clarion call for Americans to halt the dismantling and to, instead, preserve and enhance the institution that can bind the nation together."Ruth Y. Goldway, Retired Chair and Commissioner, U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission, responsible for the Forever Stamp

"In gripping detail, Christopher W. Shaw's First Class tells you who's trying to sabotage the national treasure that is the U.S. Postal Service and why (hint: corporate greed). Shaw's clarion call to protect the postal service explains what's at stake for our communities, our democracy, and our economy. While he celebrates USPS history, Shaw's gaze is primarily forward-looking. In a time of community fracture and corporate predation, he argues, a first-class post office of the future can bring communities together and offer exploitation-free banking and other services."Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen

"Christopher Shaw reveals the U.S. Postal Service's historic contributions to the welfare of all Americans, from operating an essential communication and transportation network, to pioneering public banking, to functioning as a linchpin of elections. While the Postal Service's enemies assert its inevitable demise, Shaw presents hope for a rejuvenated public service that plays an integral part of a democratic future."RoseAnn DeMoro, former Executive Director of National Nurses United

"Democracy in action government that literally delivers a service that puts the 'united' in the United States. These aren't throw-away clichesthey're the essence of our U.S. Postal Service. 'So we must kill it!' That's the perverse intent of a handful of corporate profiteers and their corrupt congressional enablers. How do we stop them and expand the beneficial work of this extraordinary public service Christopher Shaw shows us the way. Read on and act!"Jim Hightower, syndicated columnist and radio commentator

Author Bio

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 Peoples 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.