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To reverse the deterioration of the postal service - Please rate
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06 Sep 2014, 11:35
The following appeared in the opinion section of a national newsmagazine:
“To reverse the deterioration of the postal service, the government should raise the price of postage stamps. This solution will no doubt prove effective, since the price increase will generate larger revenues and will also reduce the volume of mail, thereby eliminating the strain on the existing system and contributing to improved morale.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion, be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
The author argues that if the price of the postage stamp is increased, the revenue generated by the postal services will increase. The argument further states that the volume of mails will reduce and hence the strain on the employees will reduce which will lead to a better employee morale. The author doesn't take into account the fact that increasing the price of postage stamps might cause a drastic reduction in the volume of mails due to which the revenue might end up decreasing. If this happens, the government will have even less money to invest on improving postal services. This might also result in a lot of jobs becoming redundant and to cut costs, so as to counter the reduced revenue, the government might have to lay off employees. This will ultimately lead to a reduced employee morale due to the reduced job safety and will end up further deteriorating the postal service.
The author also assumes that the only reason behind the deterioration of postal service is that the government does not have enough money to invest in improving the system. It might also be the case that there are other inefficiencies in the the system which are putting unnecessary strain on the employees. One example of such an inefficiency might be that the employees have to manually maintain duplicate records of all the mails that have come in despite the availability of computerised systems. If such redundant processes do exist, it might be easier to remove them to reduce the strain on the employees.
The argument also does not consider the effect of public backlash due to the increased prices. The postal service might become the villain in the eyes of the common man. This will ultimately result in the employees facing harassment in public and they will no longer be proud of the job they do. If such a thing happens, the postal service will end up losing a lot more than it gains.
It would be helpful if the author proves that despite the best efforts of the government, the volume of mails is really high and the employees are overworked and stressed. This will strengthen the conclusion that increasing the prices to reduce mail volumes will be helpful for the employees in general. The argument will be logically more sound if the author can further prove that such an increase will not cause a drastic reduction in mail volumes which will mean that there will be a tangible increase in revenue.