Quotes About Centralism

Nature is pretty good at networks, self-organizing systems. By contrast, social systems are top-down and hierarchical, from which we draw the basic assumption that organization and order can only come from centralism.

Education in democracy must be carried on within the Party so that members can understand the meaning of democratic life, the meaning of the relationship between democracy and centralism, and the way in which democratic centralism should be put into practice. Only in this way can we really extend democracy within the Party and at the same time avoid ultra-democracy and the laissez-faire that destroys discipline.

Today we know that centralization and big bureaucracies have not, as promised, been the answer for promoting better opportunities for society.

The ultra-centralism asked by Lenin is full of the sterile spirit of the overseer. It is not a positive and creative spirit. Lenin's concern is not so much to make the activity of the party more fruitful as to control the party--to narrow the movement rather than to develop it, to bind rather than to unify it. . . . What is today only a phantom haunting Lenin's imagination may become reality tomorrow.

Two other axes of conflict emerged: state centralism against regional independence and authoritarianism against the freedom of the individual. The

Philosophically, Communism and Anarchism are poles apart. Practically—i.e. in the form of society aimed at—the difference is mainly one of emphasis, but it is quite irreconcilable. The Communist's emphasis is always on centralism and efficiency, the Anarchist's on liberty and equality.

European centralism, European statism, the communitization of sovereign debt, a Europeanization of social systems and of the minimum wage would be the wrong way.

In brief, ...the inevitability of centralism will be self-proving. A system destroys its competitors by preempting the means and channels, and then proves that it is the only conceivable mode of operating.