Facebook Forced To Fawn Over Beltway Bosses

Had Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook—which we all use to such great advantage—neglected to schmooze Washington, one of this or the next administration’s top dogs (Republicans are no better than Democrats in persecuting business) would pick-up the scent and give chase. Why? Because we labor under a system “in which the government leaves nominal ownership of the means of production in the hands of private individuals but exercises control by means of regulatory legislation and reaps most of the profit by means of heavy taxation.” So wrote the Tannehills in The Market for Liberty.

Fascism, in short.

Duly, Facebook now has a new Washington office. As the Wall Street Journal reported:

“… Facebook is still trying to find a path to Washington, where the company has only a fledgling lobbying operation, even though it finds its privacy policies under increasing scrutiny and is trying to navigate a politically sensitive expansion into China.

In seven years, Facebook has risen from a tiny start-up to an Internet power with a potential market value estimated at more than $50 billion. Now an online forum with more than 600 million users, Facebook faces growing pressure from lawmakers and regulators concerned about the way it uses personal information shared by its users. [Yeah, right; the Big Bosses only want what’s best for us.]

At the same time, the company is confronting questions about how it will handle its role as a global public square for dissidents if it enters China and other countries with little tolerance for dissent. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal about its approach abroad, Facebook officials in Washington suggested the company might be willing to play by China’s rules—a stance that could raise hackles in Congress.

Until lately, Facebook has spent very little money in Washington, even by Silicon Valley’s frugal standards. The company’s outlays on lobbying totaled $351,000 last year, federal records show. That’s a fraction of the amount spent by other technology giants, including Google Inc.’s $5.2 million and Microsoft Corp.’s $6.9 million.”

[SNIP]

Any serious student of economics knows that regulation hinders wealth creation, often forcing the entrepreneur to replace viable, voluntary trades and transactions with bureaucratic, politicized decision making. Rather than concentrate on satisfying and protecting his users on Facebook, Zuckerberg, is now compelled to divert resources from customer service and technical innovation into navigating the bureaucrat’s tax and regulatory laws.