The Decentralization Era [Part 1]: The History of Decentralization

Is decentralization really an absolute novelty, something that was somehow discovered with cryptocurrencies and blockchains? This idea may be intriguing and may conclude that this kind of organizational system could become a winning model due to its innovative nature. But if we look deeper we will discover that decentralization is nothing new and that it already manifested itself both in human history and in nature’s organization.

The idea that only new paradigms and models may bring effective progress and improvement, is quite naive. Getting better individual lives and a better working society, and a general improvement in humanity is something that can be achieved. Also taking old, and forgotten or dismantled paradigms, and giving them a new implementation, while destroying nefarious views or practices that became eventually dominant in our current society.

Decentralization Has Been Implemented For Centuries

If we observe ancient tribal societies, we can actually see how decentralization was successfully implemented for centuries, proving to be an efficient paradigm at the time (and a more natural and affordable way to manage human communities). Also in more recent times, before nation-states were constituted, we had times, like during the Italian Renaissance (which lasted for three centuries), when less centralized social and geographical entities were acting and provoking great cultural and economic ferment.

Also, the natural realm offers countless examples of decentralization: the forests are a perfect system, where a single tree is connected via its roots and the ground with all the others and can communicate and even provide nutrients to the other plants inside the network. That’s how the internet, such a revolutionary invention, turns out not to be so original after all.

A Push Towards Centralization

Despite all those past and present practical examples, we are currently witnessing (over the most recent history) a huge push towards centralization. In the western world, it probably started with the Catholic Church, then moved to kingdoms, and finally to nations and states.

The further step was creating super-national entities like the UN, WEF, WHO, and EU, which are trying to limit states’ sovereignty, to accumulate it towards non-democratic, non-elected subjects and elites. Additionally, we have even bigger entities, which are centralizing economy, consumption, and all the fields of human activity: those are multinational corporations.

The Need For A Return To Decentralization

To come to a conclusion, we need to move away from these toxic, centralized, and unfair organizations and go towards a more natural, democratic, human, and respectful paradigm which is in fact decentralization.

Decentralization is not only empowering local communities but is a very wide concept, which creates autonomous organizations, algorithmically programmed in a transparent way, to allow efficient and not externally controlled systems, which can’t be corrupted or infiltrated.