Yes. Without them there is no justification for inequality. So to the people in power, they are very important.
But incase you genuinely believe that social order is impossible without hierarchies, you should probably read up on stateless societies, communal decision making, and anarchism.
If the goal of society is to put equality above all else then i take your point.
I think horizontal hierarchies are generally better in an organization in terms of motivating people to contribute and give them a sense of equity.
But idk how you avoid the fact that people do have bad ideas, or well intentioned ideas that could start a cascade of delays in project planning for example. People focusing on the excellence at different levels of work is important right? But having a chain of command to maintain vision, timelines, budgets, stakeholders seems to depend on hierarchy.
I think the main rebuttal to that argument is what stops that from happening in a hierarchy? If anything having one makes that more likely, since someone in charge can have a bad idea and no one below them has any real power to stop it. There’s a reason “incompetent boss/manager” is such a common trope. Having a horizontal structure where consensus is prioritized actually helps prevent those sorts of issues, since people who are the most knowledgeable and involved in the process are the ones making those decisions. It’s why group brainstorming sessions are so common, bouncing ideas off of other people involved in a project is extremely useful to help filter or improve bad ideas and build on good ones. Horizontal groups are sort of the natural state that you fall into when collaborating with people when there isn’t an existing rigidly enforced hierarchy between the members.
Idk that kind of sounds like getting rid of circles from society to stop people from driving their cars.
Its a matter of “how much time can each employee spend on one task/project”
Crowdsourcing decision-making can be a good way to make decisions. But complex, time-sensitive, specialized problems need to be handled with many hours of expertise in many different fields like data analytics (essentially predicting the future). Maybe the more specialization thats required, the less laymen input is effective in contributing. People spend their lives interpreting data, and can make fast data-driven decisions that produce the results. From theres it all Game Theory between organizations and its not that crazy that they refuse to concede the competitive edge and let someone else dominate the market. It seems like it would be hard to enforce not making certain decisions data driven.
Getting input from employees that are understanding of the subtleties is probably appreciated but even experts can be unfamiliar with the cadence of the project schedule which is why Change Control is a thing to ensure changes are not delaying or raising costs, or work the changes in with minimal distruption.
If “bosses” arent doing their job then they wont be able to explain to their bosses whats going on for them to make decisions effectively. People at the top dont like incompetency even if they themselves are. Yes bad decisions can come from the top and power corrupts.
I think its clear our government has failed us on many levels but i think banning the abstract structure “hierarchy” is some weak meme shit.
I mean in that sort of case then the group would defer to the person more knowledgeable in that specialty, same as what happens when after brainstorming people split into small groups or volunteer for individual responsibilities. Crowdsourced decision making is meant to be for the bigger aspects, stuff like what the end goal of a project should be. Smaller, extremely specialized aspects should get handled by those best equipped for it, that’s not a hierarchy. Listening to an expert is just respecting someone’s knowledge, and as long as they don’t have actual authority over you, then there’s much less risk of corruption taking place. There’s a quote from I think Proudhon Bakunin that I can’t remember off the top of my head, I’ll come back and edit this when I find it. But effectively, it boils down to the difference between authority as in power over people, and authority as in knowledge.
And people who help organize and manage jobs also don’t necessarily need to be part of a hierarchy either. If the group agrees that someone is extremely effective at helping resolve conflicts or suggesting the best path to take and that sort of role is desirable for the project then that’s what they should do. The difference is that they aren’t in a position of power over anyone. They don’t have the unilateral ability to fire someone (nor does any individual), or take away their income/ability to live. And since they don’t have that power, they aren’t in a hierarchical position over anyone. If they start trying to force their way without taking feedback then the group will stop listening to them and appoint someone else if they still feel that it’d be useful. Without a position of authority over people no hierarchy exists in the definition used in anarchist theory.
Edit: Thanks @[email protected]! Knew I read it somewhere on here recently.
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
But yeah, respecting peoples expertise in topics, splitting up work, or appointing people to give managerial suggestions aren’t hierarchical. A lack of hierarchy is not a lack of structure, it’s just a lack of power and violence being used to oppress or control people. Efficient structures like these tend to naturally fall out of self-organization once the monopolies on violence used to prop up hierarchies are removed.
good post. since i’m here, i want to expand on a few things:
But effectively, it boils down to the difference between authority as in power over people, and authority as in knowledge.
i recommend using expertise to refer to authority as in knowledge — like you did later in your comment, as Andrewism does — to avoid confusion.
They don’t have the unilateral ability to fire someone (nor does any individual)
no criticism, just expanding:
i think it’s important that someone who is given by a role or responsibility should have a mandate: the role should be specific, and it should be temporary (for an arbitrary amount of time, or till the end of a project) or recallable by a vote.
Graeber notes in something i’ll link below: ‘If something has to be done, then it’s okay to say all right, for the next three hours she’s in charge. There’s nothing wrong with that if everybody agrees to it. Or you improvise.’
Crowdsourced decision making is meant to be for the bigger aspects, stuff like what the end goal of a project should be. Smaller, extremely specialized aspects should get handled by those best equipped for it, that’s not a hierarchy.
in Kurdistan, this is the difference between technical decisions and the political (‘moral’) decisions[1]. it’s the difference between ‘when should we have our next meeting?’ and ‘should we be nonviolent?’.
technical decisions are low-impact; operational or logistical.
political decisions are high-impact, with broad social implications.
the political decisions are consensus decisions, of at least 1/3 of the group. these are vetoäble by anyone affected who wasn’t present for the vote.
the technical decisions are 2/3 or 3/4 majority votes, of the minimum affected people.
tho, as Graeber notes:
And then of course, obviously the question is who gets to decide what’s a moral question and what’s the technical one? So somebody might say, “Well, the question of [when to meet] bears on disabled people, and that’s a moral question.” So that becomes a little bit of a political football. There’s always things to debate and points of tension.
They seem to depend on hierarchies but there are decision making processes that do not depend on hierarchies even tho they might resemble them on first glance. You can have a council that makes decisions on a consensual basis, sends revocable delegates to upper level councils. This might seem like representatives as in modern parliaments but the revocable part is important. If they can be called back at any point and the position is temporal from the start, this changes everything. Also decisions should be on the lowest possible level and everything must be voluntary.
Not in the sense anarchists use the term. It’s not that the higher ups can order anyone because there are no higher ups. In a structural sense, the councils are organized in a hierarchical order as in you can draw a tree diagram, but not in the sense that the upper ones have power over the lower ones.
they’re referring to anarchist federalism, which scales in principle from neighbourhoods and work groups up to nations.
And if decisions are at rhe lowest possible levels then it seems like thats a hierarchy, which is more horizontal rather than not being a hierarchy.’
And i dont know what you meam by “the position” or “temporal” or “at the start” and that it “changes everything”.
horizontalism does not create a hierarchy, because a hierarchy (from Greek, for ‘rule of priests’) is a structure which creates superiors and subordinates.
say there’s a community — a geographical neighbourhood, a nongeographical group with shared interests, a workgroup… — that holds meetings on their own self-management and needs. when their needs concern more than themselves, then they delegate someone to communicate their concern to a larger (‘higher’) group — a city, a region, an industry — on a mandate: that they are temporary (till the concern is resolved, till the end of a project, or for an arbitrary time decided by the group); that they represent the group consensus; and that they can be recalled for any reason, more specifically in the event that they aren’t fulfilling their obligations to the group they represent.
proposals go up a chain, and revisions/changes are sent back down the chain. this cycle continues until the smallest (‘lowest’) groups are in agreement, with that agreement communicated by the delegates up to the largest relevant group. with a population like the US, these rounds of consensing can be done in the span of a month: https://participatoryeconomy.org/project/computer-simulations-of-participatory-planning/.
this structure can take infinite forms, but those structures remain fundamentally similar and therefore compatible.
when the GP says ‘this changes everything’, they mean that the temporary and recallable nature of holding a special role in society flips the current paradigm: where politicians can promise whatever they want and then fail to deliver, because other (economically-)viable candidates are few and they already have their position. there’s nothing in the current system that gives constituents the ability to immediately remove a representative who isn’t representing the people who elected them, or who uses their position to further personal agenda.
a system where the people directly involved in their work and their lives are also participants in their own work and their own life creates people who are invested in the world around them.
As far as I can tell, the anarchic perspective defines hierarchies as inherently compulsive. The claim is that organization that otherwise resembles a “hierarchy” is fine so long as it’s voluntary. You can still have people who are good at coordination in “charge” of coordinating things, with the caveat that that “authority” can be rejected at any time.
Titles for employees, and formal positions are natural because people tend to specialize but i can agree it would be maybe nicer to have more diverse job responsibilities.
But like if a company knows it has to hire 50 IT workers to meet a deadline it wouldnt hire them and hope they decide to fulfill the requirements of the job. They would lock them into a specialty so they can deploy them strategically. I just dont see it as evil or wrong to have hierarchy but i can appreciate progressive workplace environments if they work
Oh personally I think that kind of strict anti-hierarchical position is too idealistic. I don’t think the people who propose that kind of extreme decentralization have ever tried to organize a functional endeavor composed of more than a dozen people. I’d like to believe a totally voluntary, spontaneously organized society could work, but I’ve coordinated too many projects to really believe it.
Hierarchies seem like an important structure to have in society.
Yes. Without them there is no justification for inequality. So to the people in power, they are very important.
But incase you genuinely believe that social order is impossible without hierarchies, you should probably read up on stateless societies, communal decision making, and anarchism.
What if leadership is a function of experience and expertise rather than an excuse to disproportionately rob the commons of its surplus?
If the goal of society is to put equality above all else then i take your point.
I think horizontal hierarchies are generally better in an organization in terms of motivating people to contribute and give them a sense of equity.
But idk how you avoid the fact that people do have bad ideas, or well intentioned ideas that could start a cascade of delays in project planning for example. People focusing on the excellence at different levels of work is important right? But having a chain of command to maintain vision, timelines, budgets, stakeholders seems to depend on hierarchy.
I think the main rebuttal to that argument is what stops that from happening in a hierarchy? If anything having one makes that more likely, since someone in charge can have a bad idea and no one below them has any real power to stop it. There’s a reason “incompetent boss/manager” is such a common trope. Having a horizontal structure where consensus is prioritized actually helps prevent those sorts of issues, since people who are the most knowledgeable and involved in the process are the ones making those decisions. It’s why group brainstorming sessions are so common, bouncing ideas off of other people involved in a project is extremely useful to help filter or improve bad ideas and build on good ones. Horizontal groups are sort of the natural state that you fall into when collaborating with people when there isn’t an existing rigidly enforced hierarchy between the members.
Idk that kind of sounds like getting rid of circles from society to stop people from driving their cars.
Its a matter of “how much time can each employee spend on one task/project”
Crowdsourcing decision-making can be a good way to make decisions. But complex, time-sensitive, specialized problems need to be handled with many hours of expertise in many different fields like data analytics (essentially predicting the future). Maybe the more specialization thats required, the less laymen input is effective in contributing. People spend their lives interpreting data, and can make fast data-driven decisions that produce the results. From theres it all Game Theory between organizations and its not that crazy that they refuse to concede the competitive edge and let someone else dominate the market. It seems like it would be hard to enforce not making certain decisions data driven.
Getting input from employees that are understanding of the subtleties is probably appreciated but even experts can be unfamiliar with the cadence of the project schedule which is why Change Control is a thing to ensure changes are not delaying or raising costs, or work the changes in with minimal distruption.
If “bosses” arent doing their job then they wont be able to explain to their bosses whats going on for them to make decisions effectively. People at the top dont like incompetency even if they themselves are. Yes bad decisions can come from the top and power corrupts.
I think its clear our government has failed us on many levels but i think banning the abstract structure “hierarchy” is some weak meme shit.
I mean in that sort of case then the group would defer to the person more knowledgeable in that specialty, same as what happens when after brainstorming people split into small groups or volunteer for individual responsibilities. Crowdsourced decision making is meant to be for the bigger aspects, stuff like what the end goal of a project should be. Smaller, extremely specialized aspects should get handled by those best equipped for it, that’s not a hierarchy. Listening to an expert is just respecting someone’s knowledge, and as long as they don’t have actual authority over you, then there’s much less risk of corruption taking place. There’s a quote from I think
ProudhonBakunin that I can’t remember off the top of my head, I’ll come back and edit this when I find it. But effectively, it boils down to the difference between authority as in power over people, and authority as in knowledge.And people who help organize and manage jobs also don’t necessarily need to be part of a hierarchy either. If the group agrees that someone is extremely effective at helping resolve conflicts or suggesting the best path to take and that sort of role is desirable for the project then that’s what they should do. The difference is that they aren’t in a position of power over anyone. They don’t have the unilateral ability to fire someone (nor does any individual), or take away their income/ability to live. And since they don’t have that power, they aren’t in a hierarchical position over anyone. If they start trying to force their way without taking feedback then the group will stop listening to them and appoint someone else if they still feel that it’d be useful. Without a position of authority over people no hierarchy exists in the definition used in anarchist theory.
Edit: Thanks @[email protected]! Knew I read it somewhere on here recently.
— Mikhail Bakunin, God and the state, Chapter 2
But yeah, respecting peoples expertise in topics, splitting up work, or appointing people to give managerial suggestions aren’t hierarchical. A lack of hierarchy is not a lack of structure, it’s just a lack of power and violence being used to oppress or control people. Efficient structures like these tend to naturally fall out of self-organization once the monopolies on violence used to prop up hierarchies are removed.
good post. since i’m here, i want to expand on a few things:
i recommend using expertise to refer to authority as in knowledge — like you did later in your comment, as Andrewism does — to avoid confusion.
no criticism, just expanding:
i think it’s important that someone who is given by a role or responsibility should have a mandate: the role should be specific, and it should be temporary (for an arbitrary amount of time, or till the end of a project) or recallable by a vote.
Graeber notes in something i’ll link below: ‘If something has to be done, then it’s okay to say all right, for the next three hours she’s in charge. There’s nothing wrong with that if everybody agrees to it. Or you improvise.’
in Kurdistan, this is the difference between technical decisions and the political (‘moral’) decisions[1]. it’s the difference between ‘when should we have our next meeting?’ and ‘should we be nonviolent?’.
the political decisions are consensus decisions, of at least 1/3 of the group. these are vetoäble by anyone affected who wasn’t present for the vote.
the technical decisions are 2/3 or 3/4 majority votes, of the minimum affected people.
tho, as Graeber notes:
only partially related, but this discusssion reminded me of an essay on the myth that
management == efficiency: David Harvey, anarchism, and tightly-coupled systemsThey seem to depend on hierarchies but there are decision making processes that do not depend on hierarchies even tho they might resemble them on first glance. You can have a council that makes decisions on a consensual basis, sends revocable delegates to upper level councils. This might seem like representatives as in modern parliaments but the revocable part is important. If they can be called back at any point and the position is temporal from the start, this changes everything. Also decisions should be on the lowest possible level and everything must be voluntary.
Just confirming, this is a hierarchy. Certainly in your comment a better designed hierarchy, but still a hierarchy
Not in the sense anarchists use the term. It’s not that the higher ups can order anyone because there are no higher ups. In a structural sense, the councils are organized in a hierarchical order as in you can draw a tree diagram, but not in the sense that the upper ones have power over the lower ones.
Idk how that applies to every organization. It sounds pretty specific.
Because were talking about getting rid of all hierarchies right?
And if decisions are at rhe lowest possible levels then it seems like thats a hierarchy, which is more horizontal rather than not being a hierarchy.
Also i dont understand what “everything being voluntary” means and if that applies to all organizations or just government or what.
And i dont know what you meam by “the position” or “temporal” or “at the start” and that it “changes everything”.
they’re referring to anarchist federalism, which scales in principle from neighbourhoods and work groups up to nations.
horizontalism does not create a hierarchy, because a hierarchy (from Greek, for ‘rule of priests’) is a structure which creates superiors and subordinates.
say there’s a community — a geographical neighbourhood, a nongeographical group with shared interests, a workgroup… — that holds meetings on their own self-management and needs. when their needs concern more than themselves, then they delegate someone to communicate their concern to a larger (‘higher’) group — a city, a region, an industry — on a mandate: that they are temporary (till the concern is resolved, till the end of a project, or for an arbitrary time decided by the group); that they represent the group consensus; and that they can be recalled for any reason, more specifically in the event that they aren’t fulfilling their obligations to the group they represent.
proposals go up a chain, and revisions/changes are sent back down the chain. this cycle continues until the smallest (‘lowest’) groups are in agreement, with that agreement communicated by the delegates up to the largest relevant group. with a population like the US, these rounds of consensing can be done in the span of a month: https://participatoryeconomy.org/project/computer-simulations-of-participatory-planning/.
this structure can take infinite forms, but those structures remain fundamentally similar and therefore compatible.
there are examples like anarchist Spain, the Zapatistas, and — aspirationally — Rojava, mostly in in the Rojavan restorative justice system. to be fair to Rojava: they have been under siege for a decade.
for some thought experiments: Can This Book Save Us From Dystopia? (43m), The Future of Socialism (15m).
when the GP says ‘this changes everything’, they mean that the temporary and recallable nature of holding a special role in society flips the current paradigm: where politicians can promise whatever they want and then fail to deliver, because other (economically-)viable candidates are few and they already have their position. there’s nothing in the current system that gives constituents the ability to immediately remove a representative who isn’t representing the people who elected them, or who uses their position to further personal agenda.
a system where the people directly involved in their work and their lives are also participants in their own work and their own life creates people who are invested in the world around them.
As far as I can tell, the anarchic perspective defines hierarchies as inherently compulsive. The claim is that organization that otherwise resembles a “hierarchy” is fine so long as it’s voluntary. You can still have people who are good at coordination in “charge” of coordinating things, with the caveat that that “authority” can be rejected at any time.
Titles for employees, and formal positions are natural because people tend to specialize but i can agree it would be maybe nicer to have more diverse job responsibilities.
But like if a company knows it has to hire 50 IT workers to meet a deadline it wouldnt hire them and hope they decide to fulfill the requirements of the job. They would lock them into a specialty so they can deploy them strategically. I just dont see it as evil or wrong to have hierarchy but i can appreciate progressive workplace environments if they work
Oh personally I think that kind of strict anti-hierarchical position is too idealistic. I don’t think the people who propose that kind of extreme decentralization have ever tried to organize a functional endeavor composed of more than a dozen people. I’d like to believe a totally voluntary, spontaneously organized society could work, but I’ve coordinated too many projects to really believe it.
Hierarchies have given us the GenAI bubble so it doesn’t look like they are doing great at rational decision making either.
Hierarchies are not inherently good or bad.
They help where they help and they oppress where they oppress.