You don’t require universal good faith if those working in bad faith are unable to amass any substantial power.
No, but it is a trade off from substantial power over a larger group for a lot of small time bad faith actors having an easier time affecting a smaller group. Like how a small town sheriff can be malicious on their own without needing an organized state level party to enact their abuses of power.
I’m not sure which is better or worse overall, but definitely agree that too much centralization ends up with opportunities to do far more damage to a larger population in a shorter period of time.
It’s fundamentally different, and there are many examples of societies like that in history.
Lynchings were society enforcing their will collectively without an authoritarian structure. Lynchings were often (but not always) opposed by authorities who wanted a trial, even if the trial was likely to be a sham.
Black Panthers were the opposite, a community defense that was organized as a response to the abuses of those with authority. Basically the opposite of the groups that committed lynchings.
Being decentralized doesn’t solve the problems of centralized authority without being a tradeoff for the problems of a lack of authority. Both require a society that stands behind whichever approach is chosen and holds people accountable for abusing the social contract. Decentralized might even be better, but it isn’t a panacea.
What historical societies had little to no authority without running into issues with malicious actors?
![[Sarah Andersen] Capitalism](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/da4ea8ac-7425-4260-b766-1d484fade657.jpeg){kind=link}
No, but it is a trade off from substantial power over a larger group for a lot of small time bad faith actors having an easier time affecting a smaller group. Like how a small town sheriff can be malicious on their own without needing an organized state level party to enact their abuses of power.
I’m not sure which is better or worse overall, but definitely agree that too much centralization ends up with opportunities to do far more damage to a larger population in a shorter period of time.
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Woohoo! Vigilante justice!
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Lynchings were society enforcing their will collectively without an authoritarian structure. Lynchings were often (but not always) opposed by authorities who wanted a trial, even if the trial was likely to be a sham.
Black Panthers were the opposite, a community defense that was organized as a response to the abuses of those with authority. Basically the opposite of the groups that committed lynchings.
Being decentralized doesn’t solve the problems of centralized authority without being a tradeoff for the problems of a lack of authority. Both require a society that stands behind whichever approach is chosen and holds people accountable for abusing the social contract. Decentralized might even be better, but it isn’t a panacea.
What historical societies had little to no authority without running into issues with malicious actors?
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