Nonviolence can be artfully employed in the life of the individual, but its greatest effect is to be seen on our collective community lives. Since excessive centralization of political and economic power necessarily involves some degree of violence towards those in the periphery of society, therefore a nonviolent civilization must be based upon decentralized power structures. Gandhi explains:
All society is held together by non-violence, even as the earth is held in her position by gravitation. But when the law of gravitation was discovered, the discovery yielded results of which our ancestors had no knowledge. Even so, when society is deliberately constructed in accordance with the law of non-violence, its structure will be different in material particulars from what it is today.[18]
Centralization as a system is inconsistent with non-violent structure of society.[19]
What I would personally prefer would be not a centralization of power in the hands of the State, but an extention of the sense of trusteeship, as, in my opinion, the violence of private ownership is less injurious than the violence of the State. However, if that is unavoidable, I would support a minimum of state ownership.[20]Similar ideas occur in the writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá:
It is very evident that in the future there shall be no centralization in the countries of the world, be they constitutional in government, republican or democratic in form. The United States may be held up as the example of future government--that is to say, each province will be independent in itself, but there will be federal union protecting the interests of the various independent states. It may not be a republican or a democratic form. To cast aside centralization which promotes despotism is the exigency of the time. This will be productive of international peace.[21]