“Would it not be a great satisfaction to the king to know at a designated moment every year the number of his subjects, in total and by region, with all the resources, wealth & poverty of each place; [the number] of his nobility and ecclesiastics of all kinds, of men of the robe, of Catholics and of those of the other religion, all separated according to the place of their residence? … [Would it not be] a useful and necessary pleasure for him to be able, in his own office, to review in an hour’s time the present and past condition of a great realm of which he is the head, and be able himself to know with certitude in what consists his grandeur, his wealth, and his strengths?” — Marquis de Vauban, proposing an annual census to Louis XIV in 1686.[1]

Others have noted powers that a country has, that a company doesn't.

The converse holds too.

It's interesting to re-read James C. Scott's "Seeing Like a State" with social networks in mind. Facebook can “read” its users (and many non-users) in ways that states only wish they could.

“Filipinos were instructed by the decree of November 21, 1849, to take on permanent Hispanic surnames.[…] Filipinos generally lacked individual surnames, which might ‘distinguish them by families,’ and that their practice of adopting baptismal names drawn from a small group of saints’ names resulted in great ‘confusion.’ The remedy was the catalogo, a compendium not only of personal names but also of nouns and adjectives drawn from flora, fauna, minerals, geography, and the arts and intended to be used by the authorities in assigning permanent, inherited surnames. Each local official was to be given a supply of surnames sufficient for his jurisdiction, ‘taking care that the distribution be made by letters [of the alphabet].’ In practice, each town was given a number of pages from the alphabetized catalogo, producing whole towns with surnames beginning with the same letter. […] the traces of this administrative exercise are still perfectly visible across the landscape: ‘For example, in the Bikol region, the entire alphabet is laid out like a garland over the provinces of Albay, Sorsogon, and Catanduanes which in 1849 belonged to the single jurisdiction of Albay. Beginning with A at the provincial capital, the letters B and C mark the towns along the coast beyond Tabaco to Tiwi. We return and trace along the coast of Sorsogon the letters E to L; then starting down the Iraya Valley at Daraga with M, we stop with S to Polangui and Libon, and finish the alphabet with a quick tour around the island of Catanduanes.‘”[2]

The modern corporation doesn't require the cooperation, or even permission, of local officials in order to index the populace.

Mark Koyama criticizes[3] Scott: “It is hard to avoid the impression that Scott underrates the adaptability and flexibility of markets. Yes, markets can result in homogeneity; but the market process is also a driver of creative experimentation and innovation. Too much bland standardization, and markets provide incentives for entrepreneurs to create products that appear idiosyncratic or unusual. The market as a process can certainly appear ruthless and much that is valuable can be lost as a result in the hurly burly of the market place. But everyday experience provides pretty convincing evidence that markets tend to be more capable of self-correction than are state planners and bureaucrats.”

Maybe there's a case to be made that the market is working in the case of Facebook, but it's not obvious.

[1] James C. Scott, _Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed_. Yale University Press (March 30, 1998). p. 11. Excerpt https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/sc....

[2] Ibid, p. 67

[3] Mark Koyama, "Some Thoughts on “Seeing Like a State”", Medium (July 13, 2017). https://medium.com/@MarkKoyama/some-thoughts-on-seeing-like-...

[4] Bradford Delong, October 24, 2007. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/10/james-scott-and.html

[5] Scott Alexander, “Book Review: Seeing Like a State”. March 16, 2017. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like...