Power tends to concentrate, and there is no way you can simply disperse the power evenly to all the citizenry. It will not happen on its own. Just as in the primeval solar nebula, matter concentrates into individual nuclei, and what you have left over is a strong central star with a hierarchy of smaller bodies in orbit around it, with still smaller bodies orbiting them. And a lot of unfortunate debris left over. The more power accidentally accumulates in one place, the easier it is for additional power to concentrate there. It does not wind up dispersed, or even normally distributed.

I see what you're getting at, do not set up an institutionalized power center, and let random collisions (competition) keep the other power centers down to a manageable size. But what you'll eventually get is several massive power centers that either eventually coalesce into one, or instead cooperate to divide the power amongst themselves to reduce "wasteful competition". I am convinced that we cannot allow individual people or collectives (companies) to do this, they will eventually work together to crush competition and carve up the pie for their own benefit. You are convinced that the same thing will happen in government, for the same reason. We are both right. A free market can no more guarantee dispersal of power and equitable distribution of wealth than the democratic vote can prevent the eventual rise of a domineering bureaucracy that controls everything by promising the electorate more than it can deliver.

I see power-trophic people, be they lawyers, businessmen, managers, politicians, or government bureaucrats to be psychologically identical. They are mentalities that are never satisfied with prosperity, or even security, they want it all. And they can't ever get enough. The fact that these personalities frequently hop back and forth between government and business tells me that this pathology is not ideological, it is psychological. If we look at history, we see the growth of political power first, empires, slavery, feudalism. Then with mercantilism and the later rise of industrial and finance capital, we see the same process at work in "free enterprise". Either way you get something akin to feudalism, with the only dispersal of power and wealth being whatever hierarchy of king, baron and peasant that is stable enough to avoid internecine warfare.

So is all lost? No. We have found a way to have our cake and eat it too, to enjoy the egalitarianism of democracy and social equality and also to exploit the productive dynamism of raw capitalism. This is exactly what Western civilization has accomplished, and particularly under the leadership of the United States over the last century and a half. We have free enterprise controlled and tamed by democratic regulation and social legislation. It is this, not socialism or capitalism alone that has made our civilization, and especially our country, so powerful AND such a relatively humane place to live. Why do you think that every time social or welfare legislation, institutions, or social movements are introduced into the United States, the rest of the Western World quickly follows?

Is this process perfect, no. Is it finished? Certainly not. Is it even the same or equally successful in all places where it is practiced? Obviously not. Is it fragile, and perhaps only possible because of a combination of rare and fortunate circumstances peculiar to our time? Regrettably, maybe. Can it go too far? Absolutely. Just what this synthesis will eventually look like, and how it evolves to meet new conditions, will depend on politics, compromise, negotiation, and even struggle and conflict. But we know it works, and it's worth fighting for. Neither am I not surprised that those who live in the midst of this process may have very different ideas on to make it work.

My own personal position is that I do not trust this system I want to evolve on its own, based on some magical laws that will somehow take over if we just leave it alone. Neither do I suspect it can come about by having wise architects and sages design it all and implement it by law or executive fiat. I choose the middle path: controlled chaos, with everyone, even those poor unfortunates we feel are incapable of rational thought, playing a role in the decision making process. I suspect you do too, we just have very different ideas on where that path lies. And I suspect that if either of us gets our own way at the expense of the other, we both will have failed miserably.

I suspect you may be as skeptical of these remarks as I am about the libertarian utopia you outlined in yours. Well, so be it. That's what a democracy is all about.

And for my pithy closing statement: tyranny doesn't always use a gun. Sometimes it uses a dollar.