Comment by baxtr

If corruption is an unavoidable property of power, centralization is not the core problem, scale is.

Decentralized systems still concentrate power, they just do it informally, locally, without visibility or accountability.

Eliminating institutions does not remove the nexus of power, it just relocates it to actors with fewer constraints and less scrutiny.

If winners are always cheaters who did not get caught, then weakening shared rules only selects for better cheaters, not better outcomes. At least institutions create friction, records, and points of contestation. Without them, power does not disappear, it simply becomes cruder and harder to challenge.

The claim that centralization is uniquely corrupt assumes fragmentation produces virtue.

History suggests it mostly produces unchecked local coercion and chaos, not justice.