>I don't see anything necessarily beneficial in centralization.
>I notice that in history it has generally been necessary to
>impose political centralization of populations by direct
>military force and terror, so apparently the "beneficiaries"
>of it didn't see anything beneficial in it either. But in
That is the perennial short term versus long term thing. In the short run, centralization usually carries certain human cost because, as you correctly observed, it often involves coercion. But in the long- run centralization pays off to both centralizers and centralizees - they benefit from technological superiority, high culture, economies of scale, higher standards of living, and greater security.
As far as those who escaped centralizations are concerned - their may live a happy and care free lives for a while, but then they are swallowed by those who did centralize and do not live long enough to tell us about the benefits of a blissfully idyllic decentral tribal or small town life.
wojtek