We need Authority and Trust, because of our scale: We are simply too many humans to be able to directly trust one another.
Consider the following:
- In a group 4 friends, we blindly trust each other based on personal knowledge, even if there is money involved.
- In a group of 20, we easily rely on second-hand trust: if my friend trust them, so should I.
- In a village of a few hundred, you already start to see the need for a leader, an authority, to settle disputes, should one arise.
- When the size of the collective rises to millions, like a nation, we establish entire sets of organizations designed to establish trust:
- Banks: who owns credit and debit
- Land registry: who owns what land
- Patent registration: who owns which intellectual property
- Regulatory bodies: oversee financial institutions
- Tax authorities
- Notaries
Therefore, the overall need for Authority is unavoidable when we live in large collectives.