Is centralization and control inevitable?

Is centralization and control inevitable? This is debatable, but we will come to it in a moment. What is inevitable need not be desirable, what is desirable is usually not inevitable. Therefore, nothing is inevitable in human dimensions until it happens. However, in cosmic dimensions where things work according to immutable laws such inevitability thrives. Coming to ‘ is centralization and control inevitable?’, there are already hopeful signs that it may not be so.

-Internet, the ubiquitous medium that has made groups possible has grown organically and is a democratic forum in its structure. No one entity controls it or administers it. There was a move to do so in the name of efficiency and effectiveness but it has not succeeded. Most complex and stable systems, such as we, have lots of redundancies and flab. Highly efficient systems are sensitive to even slight perturbation, there is no slack, and can self destruct. I would happily sacrifice efficiency for democracy & complexity.

-Open source software movement is alive, gathering strength and I believe has a great future. No one controls, everyone corroborates, all benefit. It is like the INTELLECTUAL COMMONS – the study of COMMONS, that they manage resources better, though democratic & albeit inefficient, than private organizations that are highly efficient but not guided by right values, fetched the 2009 “The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences” to Elinor Ostrom. 

I use open source Firefox browser and have found it to be far superior for security, stability and functionality to competition.

-Slow Food Nation – is a movement that believes in the age old dictum in many cultures including Ayurveda that says “you are what you eat”. It wants to regain control over food, what they eat – how they eat – when they eat – where they eat, that has been lost to corporations in USA and Europe, and slowly creeping elsewhere. If people eat right things in moderation, then most of the pharmaceutical industry would be wiped out. Today’s life style is like driving a car with one foot on accelerator and the other on the brake. One achieves locomotion but at high energy & low happiness.

I can signal more examples, but suffice it is to say that communities have to regain control over their lives by actively participating in and influencing issues that shape their lives. Democracy is not about casting vote every 5 years and outsourcing governance to someone else in the hope they will do it at least as good as you and for your benefit. They haven’t and they won’t. 

During 9/11 fear psychosis when US citizens were paralyzed with fear, their nightmares were deliberately magnified with war on terror rhetoric and Patriot Act was passed that compromised freedom. Entire nation was lead to war on misinformation and at the end of it Osama Bin Laden is still at large, millions have been killed, injured and displaced. This would not have been possible but for the concentration of power, political – Economic – Media – and Information , in the hands of few.