Thomas Sowell seems very considerate of the opinions he forms, I'll check it out. I do already agree in general that centralized power is typically a bad idea.

Thomas Sowell seems very considerate of the opinions he forms, I'll check it out. I do already agree in general that centralized power is typically a bad idea. We cannot avoid it, however. For example, the Police force exists as a phenomenon. Without them, a group of people will naturally form privately and specialize in protection services under self-serving chaotic interests (a "mafia" for short). And since they are responsible for protection, they will be able to enforce their chaotic will upon anyone. This is because human-to-human interaction can be extremely volatile and we are capable of killing each other quickly. So it might not be ideal for economics, but we still exist as part of nature and need to account for that. We must rely on social contracts to stabilize human interaction enough for an economic system to even be possible. Buying and Selling is meaningless when Looting and Destruction are nonpunishable. A social contract is meaningless if we do not punish people for breaking them. A government is a collection of such contracts. The US government differentiates these contracts by various types and instills a separation of powers as a public framework for dealing with dangers of centralized power. Mafias have no such considerations Power still continues to consolidate among "mafia"s. They are less effective directly as a result of public centralized powers. I believe the next evolution in this war is the differentiation between what people need and what people want. They should not operate under the same economic model. If I WANT the food you NEED to eat, I should let you have it and pursue purchasing it from you instead. that should be a social contract. This should be common sense, but in the world we live in there is no visibility to what is needed vs what is wanted. People would be incentivized to claiming a NEED on as much as possible. "Bad" Public centralized power used to enforce reasonable claims to NEEDs is the only way forward given the nature of our reality. "Only way" sounds limiting, but of course there are a million+ different ways we can go about it.