5 ms·

Facebook should be nationalized and then the government should remove all advertising from the platform. When a company has a monopoly over something, bureaucr

Facebook should be nationalized and then the government should remove all advertising from the platform. When a company has a monopoly over something, bureaucracy actually works - It slows things down, reduces risks, makes life better for employees and improves moral ethics within the company. The fact that CEOs are legally bound to maximize profits doesn't make sense when the company already has a monopoly over its industry - The only way they can keep increasing profits is through scorched-earth policies which are damaging to society.

visarga 10y ago
Problem is, when it is nationalized, which party should nominate the CEO?
- jondubois 10y ago
  The president I guess. Maybe Facebook should be an independent entity like the Fed. I'm a lot more worried about corporations exerting undue influence on Facebook (which is what's happening now) than the government doing so.
  - poikniok 10y ago
    Why should Facebook be nationalized though? Why shouldn't the government make its own social network if they want to? The answer is of course nobody would use it.
    - visarga 10y ago
      You can justify nationalization by public interest.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- poikniok 10y ago
  And by extension which party nominates the Fake News czar?
iaw 10y ago
Which country and using what precedent? The only country that could feasibly nationalize Facebook is the US (because of it's location), and the word "nationalization" in the US is associated with the drivers for a 35 year cold war. So, how would this work?
- Melk 10y ago
  It could be controlled by an organization like the United Nations or even under control of the UN itself. If Facebook were a separate intergovernmental organization then, similar to the UN, it could draft a general charter while each member state would control regional provisions. Facebook could remain a publicly traded entity, except shareholders would have limited power. Another advantage is that it wouldn't need to be nationalized by any one country and whether the CEO/Secretary-General was an American or rotated like the UN wouldn't matter much because their power would also be limited.
  - iaw 10y ago
    I agree that in a perfectly egalitarian existence that would be an ideal. More pragmatically, in the world in which we live, under what precedent could such a thing happen? Facebook has a market cap of $350B right now and the controlling interest is held privately. The U.S. is founded on strong property rights and historically nationalization has been used under very dire circumstances.
  - cmurf 10y ago
    If it's going to be controlled by the U.N. why leave its asset value in the hands of shareholders? Why not take away the existing shares from the shareholders, split the shares (roughly 2.5x per) and give every person on the planet one share. And then see what happens. Maybe people vote to turn over control to the U.N. or some other organization. Maybe they just sell their 1 share. This is not advocacy, it's mental gymnastics. If you're going to say take away control from shareholders and invest it in some other body; it's hardly more controversial to also take away the asset value from (existing) shareholders also. If you only take away the control portion, the share price is going to implode anyway.
clairity 10y ago
> The fact that CEOs are legally bound to maximize profits.. this is, in fact, not a fact. ceo's of corporations are hired to execute their corporate charter. with that said, many corporations do have provisions in their charters about maximizing returns for shareholders, among other provisions. but not every corporation does, and many have competing provisions in their charters. particularly over the past ~30 years, an extensive theory of finance has been developed to argue that maximizing profit is the highest and best use of a corporation, but i'm very skeptical of that claim. german corporations for example are designed to consider all three of its constituents: employees, customers and shareholders. so while i don't disagree with all of your claims about bureaucracies, i'd argue that facebook doesn't have to be turned over to the government to realize the benefits you claim.

visarga 10y ago

Problem is, when it is nationalized, which party should nominate the CEO?

jondubois 10y ago
The president I guess. Maybe Facebook should be an independent entity like the Fed. I'm a lot more worried about corporations exerting undue influence on Facebook (which is what's happening now) than the government doing so.
- poikniok 10y ago
  Why should Facebook be nationalized though? Why shouldn't the government make its own social network if they want to? The answer is of course nobody would use it.
  - visarga 10y ago
    You can justify nationalization by public interest.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
poikniok 10y ago
And by extension which party nominates the Fake News czar?

iaw 10y ago

Which country and using what precedent? The only country that could feasibly nationalize Facebook is the US (because of it's location), and the word "nationalization" in the US is associated with the drivers for a 35 year cold war. So, how would this work?

Melk 10y ago
It could be controlled by an organization like the United Nations or even under control of the UN itself. If Facebook were a separate intergovernmental organization then, similar to the UN, it could draft a general charter while each member state would control regional provisions. Facebook could remain a publicly traded entity, except shareholders would have limited power. Another advantage is that it wouldn't need to be nationalized by any one country and whether the CEO/Secretary-General was an American or rotated like the UN wouldn't matter much because their power would also be limited.
- iaw 10y ago
  I agree that in a perfectly egalitarian existence that would be an ideal. More pragmatically, in the world in which we live, under what precedent could such a thing happen? Facebook has a market cap of $350B right now and the controlling interest is held privately. The U.S. is founded on strong property rights and historically nationalization has been used under very dire circumstances.
- cmurf 10y ago
  If it's going to be controlled by the U.N. why leave its asset value in the hands of shareholders? Why not take away the existing shares from the shareholders, split the shares (roughly 2.5x per) and give every person on the planet one share. And then see what happens. Maybe people vote to turn over control to the U.N. or some other organization. Maybe they just sell their 1 share. This is not advocacy, it's mental gymnastics. If you're going to say take away control from shareholders and invest it in some other body; it's hardly more controversial to also take away the asset value from (existing) shareholders also. If you only take away the control portion, the share price is going to implode anyway.

clairity 10y ago

> The fact that CEOs are legally bound to maximize profits.. this is, in fact, not a fact. ceo's of corporations are hired to execute their corporate charter. with that said, many corporations do have provisions in their charters about maximizing returns for shareholders, among other provisions. but not every corporation does, and many have competing provisions in their charters. particularly over the past ~30 years, an extensive theory of finance has been developed to argue that maximizing profit is the highest and best use of a corporation, but i'm very skeptical of that claim. german corporations for example are designed to consider all three of its constituents: employees, customers and shareholders. so while i don't disagree with all of your claims about bureaucracies, i'd argue that facebook doesn't have to be turned over to the government to realize the benefits you claim.