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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 organiz
by 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 agoI 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 agoIf 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.