More Cooptation

Cooptation continues to be a primary strategy in Washington these days.  We saw it in the early stages of their move to socialize healthcare.  Cooptation is a strategy to bring your opposition to the table, giving them the illusion of power, but with the intention of controlling them by making them feel like they are part of the process.

We are now seeing evidence that those who work with and finance high growth ventures might have been duped into believing that they were going to be part of the Obama administration's in-crowd.  Early on many of these folks were almost giddy as a result of the attention that the administration was paying to them.  They were promised that high growth entrepreneurs were at the cornerstone of the administration's economic policies.

Be careful what you pray for.

Higher taxes, potentially even much higher taxes, more regulation, and potentially even tighter regulation are beginning to have a significant impact on the center of the technology universe -- Silicon Valley.

In a recent post from at PajamasMedia, Michael Malone chronicles that while on the surface it may seem that good times are right around the corner, in truth all is not well in the entrepreneurial heart of the west coast:

The crucial center of the tech world - new and fast-moving companies - the meat in the technology sandwich - is gone.  Under the press of an economic slowdown, government regulations that have handcuffed entrepreneurs and venture capitalists - and perhaps most of all, an Administration that increasingly seems actively hostile to entrepreneurship and small business - high tech is hollowing out.

And this is before the impact of federalizing healthcare and the anti-capitalism death penalty known as Cap and Trade have even been passed.

But in another recent post, Malone tells us not to lose heart:

And why keep working past the point when the government takes it all away?   Why not use the remaining time - and a good network on some place like LinkedIn - to try your hand at entrepreneurship and build a virtual start-up company?    And when inflation hits, you may find you make more money sitting at home at your computer arbitraging and investing the wealth you have than actually working for an ever-less valuable paycheck.

In other words, even if Washington no longer believes you can make intelligent decisions for yourself, it doesn't mean you can't make them anyway.  And even if our leaders have chosen to be foolish, it doesn't mean that you can't choose to be wise.

But what will we do when they finish taxing and regulating the Internet?

Cooptation always leads to the same outcome.  Those who thought they had a seat at the table are pushed to the floor to fend for crumbs with the rest of us.

(Thanks John Wark who writes Old Dog New Trick for suggesting the content for this post).