Decentralized pursuit of non-domination breeds accumulating petty despotisms, not freedom

Evidence

Inequalities of physical health and prowess, social connection and influence, environmental location, and the like are inevitable in any real-world situation. And such inequalities are bound to accumulate under any real-world history, as the strong use their strength to accumulate more and more resources and thereby to become stronger still. Thus, the inevitable result of people’s pursuing non-domination in a decentralized way will be that most find themselves at the mercy, here of this stronger person or group, there of another. We may expect a society where petty despotisms are rampant: where men lord it over women, the richer lord it over the poorer, insiders lord it over outsiders, and so on. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 456

Categorization

• XREF: A wealth-inequality-power-accumulation feedback that parallels the snowballing resource inequality mechanisms seen in the economic-institutions sources. — connects to: Polycentric governance can generate republican norms without state coercion — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 1; Spanish decentralization under Zapatero improved non-dominating governance prospects. — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 56; Freedom as non-domination is inherently dynamic and adapts to emerging interests — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 1252 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Neo-liberal capitalism decentralizes authority yet intensifies domination. #corroborates (0.95) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 141
• Genuine rationalization requires domination-free public communication, not administrative expertise #corroborates (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2704