Growing numbers of economists of all political stripes are coming to the conclusion that the U.S. Postal Service should be stripped of the privileges and obligations of its legal monopoly status and forced to compete in the marketplace. New technologies, such as fax machines and the Internet, and strong competitors, such as United Parcel Service, are already forcing the Postal Service to compete in some areas.

• The Postmaster General estimates the quasi-government enterprise will lose about $1.4 billion next year -- with an increase in first class postage of 2 to 3 cents expected.

• Last year the Postal Service's 800,000 employees processed 182 billion pieces of mail, using 36,000 buildings, 200,000 vehicles and contract space on 15,000 commercial air service flights a day.

• Employees averaged $44,613 in compensation last year.

• U.S.P.S. revenues exceeded $56 billion -- more than the combined gross of Intel, McDonald's and Kodak.

Its massive workforce absorbs four-fifths of those revenues. The thousands of inefficient branches it operates in rural areas absorb $4 for every dollar they generate.

Private delivery services like UPS are prohibited by law from using privately-owned mailboxes. Even so, the U.S.P.S. has been unable to hold its own in markets legally open to competition.

• Although it pioneered overnight delivery in the 1970, private competitors now control 96 percent of that market.

• U.P.S.'s employee-owners now carry 10 times the volume of parcel post that the U.S.P.S. carries.

Competition has sprung up in some unusual ways: rather than direct mail, advertisers are using infomercials, e-mail and long-distance phone calls. Starting in 1999, the Treasury is scheduled to make all payments electronically -- from Social Security checks to bills for paper clips.

Along with stripping its monopoly powers, reformers suggest selling off all or part of the U.S.P.S. to private enterprise. What used to be a conservative theme has been taken up across the board. As Yale University Law School professor George Priest says, "The U.S. Postal Service embraces almost all the aspects of socialism discredited in Eastern Europe."

Source: Peter Passell, "Battered by Its Rivals," New York Times, May 15, 1997.