Centralization Quotes

“Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom—that the current economic and political system is the only possible one—the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed program of how this system will be brought into existence. Historically, this is ridiculous. When has social change ever happened according to someone’s blueprint? It’s not as if a small circle of visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called “capitalism,” figured out the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin.”
― David Graeber

“In examining the division of powers, as established by the Federal Constitution, remarking on the one hand the portion of sovereignty which has been reserved to the several States, and on the other, the share of power which has been given to the Union, it is evident that the Federal legislators entertained very clear and accurate notions respecting the centralization of government. The United States form not only a republic, but a confederation; yet the national authority is more centralized there than it was in several of the absolute monarchies of Europe....”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Ordinary cruelty is simple stupidity. It comes from the entire want of imagination. It is the result in our days of stereotyped systems, of hard-and-fast rules, of centralisation, of officialism, and of irresponsible authority. Whenever there is centralisation there is stupidity. What is inhuman in modern life is officialism. Authority is as destructive to those who exercise it as it is to those on whom it is exercised.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“The cultivation of a single staple grain was, in itself, an important step in legibility and hence, appropriation. Monoculture fosters uniformity at many different levels. . .A society shaped powerfully by monoculture was easier to monitor, assess, and tax than one shaped by agricultural diversity.”
― James C. Scott

“Given a choice between patterns of subsistence that are relatively unfavorable to the cultivator but which yield a greater return in manpower or grain to the state and those patterns that benefit the cultivator but deprive the state, the ruler will choose the former every time. The ruler, then, maximizes the state-accessible product, if necessary, at the expense of the overall wealth of the realm and its subjects.”
― James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia

“Centralization is an abomination! Decentralize everything! Leave nothing to the central planners.”
― A.E. Samaan

“Or, to express it differently, planning and competition can be combined only by planning for competition but not by planning against competition.
It is of the utmost importance to the argument of this book for the reader to keep in mind that the planning against which all our criticism is directed is solely the planning against competition — the planning which is to be substituted for competition. This is the more important, as we cannot, within the scope of this book, enter into a discussion of the very necessary planning which is required to make competition as effective and beneficial as possible. But as in current usage "planning" has become almost synonymous with the former kind of planning, it will sometimes be inevitable for the sake of brevity to refer to it simply as planning, even though this means leaving to our opponents a very good word meriting a better fate.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

“cashless society: (n.) dystopian civilization where you can be sure the real terrorists have won.”
― Sol Luckman, The Angel's Dictionary

“Intellectually and compassionately explaining the reason freedom works is required for credibility.”
― Ron Paul, End the Fed

“I'm not talking about being against development. I'm talking about the politics of development. I'm talking about more development, not less. More democracy, not less. More modernization, not less. How do you break down this completely centralized, undemocratic process of decision-making? How do you make sure that it's decentralized and that people have power over their lives and their natural resources? I don't even believe in the modern business-like notion of "efficiency". It dovetails with totalitarianism, fascism. Peopl say, "If it's decentralized it will be inefficient." I think that's fine. Let it be inefficient.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy

“The destruction of representative government and private capitalism of the old school was complete when Hitler came to power. He had contributed mightily to the final result by his ceaseless labors to create chaos. But when he stepped into the chancellery all the ingredients of national socialist dictatorship were there ready to his hand…

The aim in which Bismarck had failed was accomplished almost at a stroke in the Weimar Constitution – the subordination of the individual states to the federal state. The old imperial state had to depend on the constituent states to provide it with a part of its funds. Now this was altered, and the central government of the republic became the great imposer and collector of taxes, paying to the states each a share. Slowly the central government absorbed the powers of the states. The problems of business groups and social groups were all brought to Berlin. The republican Reichstag, unlike its imperial predecessor, was now charged with the vast duty of managing almost every energy of the social and economic life of the republic. German states were always filled with bureaus, so that long before World War I travelers referred to the ‘bureaucratic tyrannies’ of the empire. But now the bureaus became great centralized organisms of the federal government dealing with the multitude of problems which the Reichstag as completely incapable of handling. Quickly, the actual function of governing leaked out of the parliament into the hands of the bureaucrats. The German republic became a paradise of bureaucracy on a scale which the old imperial government never knew. The state, with its powers enhanced by the acquisition of immense economic powers and those powers brought to the center of government and lodged in the executive, was slowly becoming, notwithstanding its republican appearance, a totalitarian state that was almost unlimited in its powers.”
― John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching: A Biting Indictment of the Coming of Domestic Fascism in America

“The reason shadow histories remained in the shadows lay in the centralization of information: If an idea wasn't discussed on one of three major networks or on the pages of a major daily newspaper or national magazine, it was almost impossible for that idea to gain traction with anyone who wasn't consciously searching for alternative perspectives. That era is now over. There is no centralized information, so every idea has the same potential for distribution and acceptance. Researching the events of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center is no harder or easier than absorbing the avalanche of arguments from those who believe 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government. There will be no shadow history of the 2008 financial crisis or the 2014 New England Patriots' "Deflategate" scandal, because every possible narrative and motive was discussed in public, in real time, across a mass audience, as the events transpired. Competing modes of discourse no longer "compete." They coexist.”
― Chuck Klosterman, But What If We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past

“One way to understand ”socialism” as a social goal is in terms of central planning coupled to a socialization of property. This interpretation of socialism is so in tune with the elaboration of coordinator interests and ideology into a position of power in society, the coordinators became society’s planners and managers that we may discover that …we may, in fact, want to equate “central planning” with a coordinator or technocratic rather than a socialist form of economic organization. We would then wish to employ the label socialism only to refer to forms of organization guaranteeing self-management to workers themselves.”
― Donald Stabile, Prophets of Order: The Rise of the New Class, Technocracy and Socialism in America

“I'm a federalist. I believe in the Italy of municipalities, of the Renaissance, not in Mussolini's centralization.”
― Matteo Salvini

“Guérin's leftist, class-based critique of Jacobinism thus had three related implications for contemporary debates about political tactics and strategy. First, it implied a rejection of "class collaboration" and therefore of any type of alliance with the bourgeois Left (Popular Frontism). Second, it implied that the revolutionary movement should be uncompromising, that it should push for more radical social change and not stop halfway (which, as Saint Just famously remarked, was to dig one's own grave), rejecting the Stalinist emphasis on the unavoidability of separate historical "stages" in the long-term revolutionary process. Third, it implied a rejection both of the Leninist model of a centralised, hierarchical party dominating the labour movement and of the "substitutism" (substitution of the party for the proletariat) which had come to characterize the Bolshevik dictatorship.”
― David Berry, For a Libertarian Communism

“Derrida encourages us to be especially wary of the notion of the centre. We cannot get by without a concept of the centre, perhaps, but if one were looking for a single ‘central idea’ for Derrida’s work it might be that of decentring.”
― Nicholas Royle

“Acquisition, acquisition, acquisition, merger! Until there was only one business left in every field.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation

“To achieve their fullest development, modern capitalist production and bank speculation require enormous centralized states, which alone are capable of subjecting the many millions of laborers to their exploitation. A federal organization, from below upward, of workers’ associations, groups, communes, districts, and, ultimately, regions and nations—the sole condition for real as opposed to fictitious freedom—is as contrary to their essence as any kind of economic autonomy is incompatible with them.”
― Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy

“The fear of losing the grip of the financial CONTROL on the masses won't let the Central Banks give traditional banks the total freedom to develop and innovate using Blockchain technology. But, some of those banks will still find a way to circumvent it with time as failure not do so will draw customers away from them.”
― Olawale Daniel

“As the government of different nations, through the Central banks, are making adoption of Blockchain products difficult for the people, which in return, affects the bank's profit, it won't be long until some of these traditional institutions find a way to circumvent it and create a backdoor loop that would blow everything out of water.”
― Olawale Daniel

“The world is gradually waking up to the fact that every form of money that exists at the moment, except blockchain-based Bitcoin and other altcoins, can be manipulated and weaponized by the political class and centralized institutions, especially during a crisis, to achieve their extreme totalitarianism and the people are opting out.”
― Olawale Daniel

“Cryptocurrencies are vastly distinguished from any fiat currency, because, unlike the centrally controlled fiat currencies, you cannot be canceled or denied the ability to make transactions anywhere anytime, without the interference of any other third-party agencies.”
― Olawale Daniel

“Seize the means of propaganda! Confiscate the central-planner’s ability to steer the collective as if it were livestock.”
― A.E. Samaan

“Decentralization makes technology more complicated and further out of reach for basic users, rather than simpler and more accessible.

While it’s possible to fix this by adding new layers that can speed things up, doing so makes the whole system more centralized, which defeats the purpose.”
― Harvard Business Review, Web3: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review