The point is that the problem of power is never going away. There is no magical system or set of institutions that will solve that problem. It doesn't matter whether we have rule by private fiefdoms, or public states or anarchist communes or theocratic religious enclaves, the human being is still a predatory animal, most people are still creatures of the herd, and it is the wolves rather than the sheep that get to the top. So the question is how do we keep the wolves at bay? And this includes the police wolves, politician wolves, and businessman (or union boss) wolves as well as the common criminal wolves.
I actually think the polycentric / decentralist / federalist / subsidiarity principle is a helpful one, but I also think this can be reconciled with both the conservative and anarchist, libertarian and communitarian traditions. So we really don't need to spend a lot of time arguing about it.
- Keith Preston (the passage is from the comments of this article)
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