"But the world is changing, and Time's 2010 Person of the Year, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, is creating that change. While politicians stand in the way of progress, entrepreneurs like Zuckerberg make it. While governments operate in secret, Facebook embraces transparency. And while governments' use of force and monopoly leads to unwanted associations and tensions between various groups, the nearly 600 million people on Facebook choose whom they want to be friends with."
My emphasis. There's even more praise in the article.
I'm not even remotely a fan of Zuckerberg, Facebook, the Facebook culture or even the article, but one thing is for sure... I can't argue with the headline.
I can. Facebook is basically web hosting with to let you do blogging, e-mail, and instant messaging. Sorta. And third parties can provide more features, like online games.
So basically, Facebook centralizes things that already existed in a more distributed form. I call that predation, not creation.
I've made that same argument, but... how did Facebook get its initial critical mass of users if it provides nothing new? There must be some reason all those college students signed up for it.
Facebook initially offered a more socially exclusive version of MySpace (i.e. college students). By doing so they were able to tap into established social networks - e.g. campus organizations such as clubs, fraternities and sororities as well as the general sense of community created by the US college system through inter-collegiate athletics.
“Zuckerberg is quickly learning the cold reality that making the world a better place for human relations with your grand idea runs headlong into stifling government rules and regulations that short-circuit voluntary exchanges and gum up the division of labor. While government wants to treat everyone like uniform and interchangeable ants, humans are unique, as Murray Rothbard wrote in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays. "It is the fact that these unique personalities need freedom for their full development that constitutes one of the major arguments for freedom."
Forcing Facebook to be publicly traded and sending Zuckerberg to Washington with hat in hand, like Bill Gates before him, is more tragic than Jenkins knows. Rothbard pointed out that "only the free man can be fully individuated and, can be fully human." Investment, mobility, the division of labor, creativity, entrepreneurship, and ultimately wealth creation depend upon individual freedom. Dotting i's and crossing t's for the SEC won't spur the creative process. Next, valuable resources and brainpower will be stationed in the nation's capitol to play defense.”
This is a as good an advertisement about not straying too far from your core field of competency as any.
mises.org : strong on the Austrian school of economics, not so hot on the whole social networking thing and the actors and principles behind its chief exponent :)
This is the most contrived article I've read this year. The author must have had an aneurysm trying to stretch the Austrian economics rhetoric and catechism to fit his argument that Zuckerberg is the second coming of John Galt.
Heh, yeah :) Never read Atlas Shrugged, the part of me that thirsts for completist knowledge says yes but the part of me that has an aversion to burning books says no.
When I saw the headline, I thought surely it must be The Onion with one of their better jibes. The idea that it was written without irony leaves me speechless.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 65.7 ms ] threadMy emphasis. There's even more praise in the article.
lol
So basically, Facebook centralizes things that already existed in a more distributed form. I call that predation, not creation.
Forcing Facebook to be publicly traded and sending Zuckerberg to Washington with hat in hand, like Bill Gates before him, is more tragic than Jenkins knows. Rothbard pointed out that "only the free man can be fully individuated and, can be fully human." Investment, mobility, the division of labor, creativity, entrepreneurship, and ultimately wealth creation depend upon individual freedom. Dotting i's and crossing t's for the SEC won't spur the creative process. Next, valuable resources and brainpower will be stationed in the nation's capitol to play defense.”
With friends like mises.org, who needs enemies.
mises.org : strong on the Austrian school of economics, not so hot on the whole social networking thing and the actors and principles behind its chief exponent :)
People like these guys.