I think that it's very hard to decentralize power because of human nature. If you put 10 people together to do a task, then soon nature will do it's thing and some will automaticly lead and some will follow. I think that the main key here would be to block options, where people could obtain power not by natural selection, but by deception. Violence is also strongly rooted in human nature and it takes a good violent person to be able to take down a bad violent person. I think that the main key here is to root out general corruption and to nurture virtues.
I have had an idea that it would be great if there would be a system where academic accomplishes would actualy give different people different rights to vote on different choices, that the government has to make. The internet could actually enable this method to be efficient enough. You needed more centralization before the age of internet, because you can imagine the inefficiency when an interviewer would have to visit people door to door, just to get their votes on different everyday subjects. But with the internet this could actually work. It would be great if you could concentrate the smartest people on every subject and let them make the best informed decisions possible on the subject they know best.
Violence is inevitable, but the sanction against
initiating violence is what differentiates the civilized from barbarians and savages. The State is the one great exception we make for no clear reason except that's what we've always had. There will always be leaders and followers, but there need not be
rulers. Even if there are rulers, rulers with small domains are less harmful than rulers with large domains.
I think civilization is inevitably going to revert back to city states simply because they are more efficient and technology is making large populations ungovernable. I think it will be a long process but ultimately a step in the right direction. I have very little faith in academics because they suffer almost no consequences for their bad ideas.