Ultimately reality will select classes of optimally adapted organizational patterns for a species that dominates and is constrained on a finite planet.
This unavoidable constraint sets global boundary conditions that will disallow much of the theoriticking (and politicking) that happened in past centuries, including the shape, size, legal structure and function of corporate entities.
The tangible evidence of that "weeding-out" process is the emergence of accountability frameworks for environmental and social impacts. One quickly realizes that the autonomous corporate unit ceases to be a useful abstraction, suddenly the "supply chain" and propagation of responsibility between nominally independent entities becomes central.
It doesn't mean that decentralization is doomed. From a systems perspective it is both more resilient when facing unknown-unknowns and it also happens to cater to our antediluvian historical experience of open horizons and unlimited possibility. But we can only split hairs about how much decentralization is viable when we have gotten on top of the known-unknowns.
In a simplifying analogy using a sphere/globe metaphor, centralization is a vibration along fundamental modes in which everybody participates (whether they like it or not), a bit like the tidal cycle, whereas decentralization is a localized excitation, a bit like wind induced surface waves.
This unavoidable constraint sets global boundary conditions that will disallow much of the theoriticking (and politicking) that happened in past centuries, including the shape, size, legal structure and function of corporate entities.
The tangible evidence of that "weeding-out" process is the emergence of accountability frameworks for environmental and social impacts. One quickly realizes that the autonomous corporate unit ceases to be a useful abstraction, suddenly the "supply chain" and propagation of responsibility between nominally independent entities becomes central.
It doesn't mean that decentralization is doomed. From a systems perspective it is both more resilient when facing unknown-unknowns and it also happens to cater to our antediluvian historical experience of open horizons and unlimited possibility. But we can only split hairs about how much decentralization is viable when we have gotten on top of the known-unknowns.
In a simplifying analogy using a sphere/globe metaphor, centralization is a vibration along fundamental modes in which everybody participates (whether they like it or not), a bit like the tidal cycle, whereas decentralization is a localized excitation, a bit like wind induced surface waves.