by DyslexicAtheist | 2025-08-30 22:10:53+00:00
Sadly, and fortunately, there is no such thing as "avoiding centralization", the evidence is overwhelming:

== Politics & Sociology (power concentrates in organizations)

- Robert Michels, Political Parties (1911) origin of the "iron law of oligarchy": even democratic groups tend to end up run by a few: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy

- Jo Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" (1970/72): leaderless groups develop informal, unaccountable elites unless they make structure explicit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...

- Max Weber, bureaucracy & rational-legal authority: why modern societies gravitate to rule-bound, hierarchical administration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational-legal_authority

- James G. March & Herbert A. Simon, Organizations (1958): classics on bounded rationality and why attention/decision bottlenecks yield hierarchy: https://www.amazon.se/-/en/James-G-March/dp/0471567930

== Economics & Political Economy (why markets/platforms centralize)

- Ronald Coase, "The Nature of the Firm" (1937): firms exist (and grow) when internal coordination is cheaper than market exchange: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0335.1937...

- Oliver Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies (1975): transaction-cost economics: asset specificity & opportunism push activity into hierarchies: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1496220

- W. Brian Arthur, "Increasing Returns and Lock-In" (1989): small early advantages + network effects => path-dependent monopolies: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2234208

- Katz & Shapiro, network effects (1985/1994): compatibility and standards help explain winner-take-most dynamics: https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/systems.pdf

- Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014): when r > g, wealth concentrates; proposes progressive wealth taxation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce...

== Networks, Complexity & Information (why hubs and hierarchies emerge)

Albert-László Barabási, Linked (2002): preferential attachment makes networks develop hubs (central nodes) http://networksciencebook.com/chapter/5

Herbert A. Simon, "The Architecture of Complexity" (1962): complex systems often become hierarchical because modular hierarchies are easier to evolve and manage https://faculty.sites.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/archive/tesfatsi/...

W. Ross Ashby, "Law of Requisite Variety" (1956): controllers need at least as much "variety" as the environment and it often pushes toward central coordinating mechanisms (or many distributed ones with enough capacity) http://pcp.vub.ac.be/books/AshbyReqVar.pdf

Gilbert & Lynch, proof of the CAP theorem (2002): in distributed computing you can’t have perfect consistency + availability under network partitions and real systems centralize/compromise to cope: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/tds/papers/Gilbert/Brewer2.pdf

Robert K. Merton, "The Matthew Effect" (1968): cumulative advantage: success attracts more success, reinforcing centralization of recognition/resources https://garfield.library.upenn.edu/merton/matthew1.pdf

== State power, legibility & infrastructure (why governments centralize)

James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State (1998): states seek legibility and large projects favor central plans and standardized populations/landscapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State (literally anything by Jim Scott -RIP- will be useful)

Tim Wu, The Master Switch (2010): communications industries cycle from openness to centralized "information empires" https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...

== Technology & platforms (contemporary centralization)

Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism (2017): explains how platform business models + data/network effects produce concentration https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504...

== When decentralization can work

Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (1990): shows conditions (clear rules, monitoring, graduated sanctions, polycentric governance) under which decentralized, federated management of shared resources succeed https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/governing-the-commons/A...

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the literature making a counterpoint is abundant / overwhelming but that feels bleak considering when reading these works, systems thinking )the basis for "la technique") favors centralization