We Don’t Need Zuckbucks
Facebook is joining a long tradition of companies minting their own currency to cement their monopoly over the infrastructure of social and economic life. Now is the time to stop tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg in their tracks — before they amass even more power.
Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, D.C.Zach Gibson / Getty
The tech titans of Silicon Valley are often compared to the robber barons of the Gilded Age. An apt comparison to be sure. But in assessing Facebook’s recent move to coin its own digital currency it may be helpful to look back a bit further in time.
The East India Company — the joint-stock company that subjugated the Indian subcontinent and laid the groundwork for the British Empire — also, incidentally, minted its own coins.
Queen Elizabeth I granted the East India Company a charter in 1600 to exploit the South Asian trading opportunities that had opened up following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Over the next nearly three centuries the company grew to mammoth proportions, dominating world trade from an office in London.
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