i just had a long discussion with an anarchist last night.. and i still don't quite understand his ideology. i think i've narrowed it down to him thinking that government is the root of all problems. i, on the other hand, think that government is only part of the problem. the main issue is the nature of man.
The basic problem as I see it is that governments are no escape from the nature of man. They will not somehow lift us up and out of what we are.
Taking a line from the Declaration of Independence - "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" - we see an attempt to deal with the problem of the nature of man. Basically, we have rights, and people want to infringe them. Great idea: establishing an institution to defend against such threats. So for example if you become a threat to my rights, I have the right to defend myself, and my neighbor and I have the right to band together against you.
by decentralizing government, i don't see how this makes the situation any better.
Suppose my group of people banded together to defend our rights starts oppressing you, infringing your rights. This is how decentralization helps: you also have the right to defend yourself, to join together with others to do so, etc. Basically there would be no problem whatsoever with you and I, in the same territory, belonging to competing institutions that defend rights - you could call them governments if you want. And it would be a very good way to protect ourselves, to prevent any of these institutions from becoming oppressive. It's a fantastic "check and balance."
That is why any legitimate government should allow people to secede. Rather than forcing people to accept its rights-securing services, it should permit people to decline to participate and to participate in competing service providers. The reason governments as we know them don't allow this is because what they really want, rather than protecting people's rights, is power.
if you banded with a group to take my rights away, and i have 3 guns to go against your 1,000 strong.. then i'll only fall under your power. if i group up with someone else, and i only have 2 hands and 3 guns to offer, then i won't be joining forces on my own terms, but instead i'd be at the whim of the guy who has more influence.
so that means i have only a few choices as an individual:
1) allow the aggressor to dominate me in every way (especially economically).
2) sell myself to another powerful group, which would dominate me since i'd only be 1 strong.. i'd be agreeing to their terms if i wanted protection from them.
3) run away and give up my possessions
monopoly governments. Decentralization makes the threat you are describing
.
Right now we are all facing basically only options 1 and 3 in response to oppression. If everybody suddenly faced option 2, then the oppressing institution would suddenly lose a lot of support and become a lot smaller - making it easier to defend against.
I do not like the gangsters who run my state government. But I would love to have them actually stand up and defend me against the gangsters who run my federal government. That would be a valuable service they could perform for me, and I have a better chance of defending myself against the local state gangsters than the powerful Washington gangsters. Then my city or county gangsters could defend me against the state gangsters, and my local neighborhood could perhaps stand up to the city gangsters. This would be fantastic for freedom and prosperity! It wouldn't solve all of the world's ills, but it would certainly give us a fighting chance that we do not have now.