filesystems

It’s unjust hierarchy that’s bad.

Parent/child, teacher/student, expert/novice, etc are fine of course.

It’s not about hiararchy itself, it’s about check of power. When there is only obediance from below and nobody outside the chain of command can hold the top tiers accountable, now that’s when you know the system will be exploited.

Not all hierarchies are bad. For instance, in a judicial system, there need to be different tiers of courts as otherwise, if courts had universal authority and made conflicting decisions, it would complicate the law more so than it is already.

Similarly, in a large society that needs unity, if people make all decisions, the results would be catastrophic as most people don’t have the time or energy to focus on every mundane decision. In such a case, elected representatives becomes mandatory, creating a hierarchy.

Yet another example is cases where fast decision-making is required (e.g., to respond to an emergency). In such a case, there needs to be a central authority who holds others responsible and coordinates response.

Ultimately, if you consider a hierarchy where accountability is possible i.e. one party may have more power over the second than the second over first but the second still has some power over the first, then it makes accountability possible in hierarchies. Hierarchies are only wrong when the power gap increases, a small power gap is alright provided it doesn’t widen with time.

You could make the argument that a chain of accountability is better (X->Y->Z->X), but even such chains may include hierarchies (i.e. X itself is a hierarchy). Similarly, authority diffused among different people also suffers from potential shifting of blame. Truly neutral relations between different parties are impossible and ultimately, a power difference exists between any two parties, though it may be minute, and this power gap must be acknowledged.

In conclusion, there are a lot of disadvantages of hierarchies but there are some domains where hierarchies are good. There is no system of distribution of power that is without flaws.

Hierarchies are brilliant and necessary in almost all things. The problem we have with them is that people just want to be at the top, and the type of person most likely to make it there aren’t the kinds of people we want there.

The issue with hierarchies being bad are typically because there are bad actors in them. It’s more of a people problem than an inherent one.

Are hierarchies inherently bad…

Allah asked, rhetorically.

Try asking this question in an anarchist comm

Bad in all aspects? People wouldn’t form hierarchies all the time if there were only downsides to it. It’s pretty much the clearest and easiest way to organize.

I think the devil is in the details.

How accountable are the top? What incentives do they have when they make decisions?

What alternatives exist that is better without becoming byzantine in their implementation?

Hierarchy is useful for organisation of a military and siege economy when faced with an external threat. Whether it is “good” or “bad” depends on how it is used and why. Hierarchy in general is damaging to the relationships of persons who exist within it and generally lead to abuse of power. I would like to see hierarchy done away with but this is only possible when external threats to one’s life and economy are eliminated.

Imagine trying to coordinate something like food distribution on a national scale without some degree of hierarchy.

Hierarchies are good when you want to distribute decision making across a large number of actors. Some actors can integrate the decisions of others around them and repeat them back so that other nearby actors have a better understanding of the larger scale situation without paying attention to it themselves. Similarly actors with long distance relationships can coordinate decisions for a large number of actors across very large groups.

This leads to a natural form of heirarchy with some actors being more central/abstract/supportive for a particular task or goal with other actors being more peripheral/direct or immediate/active.

Heirarchies work when the central, detectched actors serve to spread the decisions and needs of the peripheral, immediately involved actors.

Heirarchies fail when the central actors use their increased access to obtain resources, power, additional access, divide other actors to make themselves more important, etc.

There’s always someone in charge. The leadership may be fluid, with one person leading the hunt, another running food preparation, and another in charge of keeping watch, but there’s always someone in charge.

Hierarchies are good to have if

1. they help to organise things more efficiently and
2. the leader is benevolent/interested in the wellbeing of the participants.

Hierarchies can be good if there is real movement up and down a hierarchy according to skill level - a good army for instance does not succumb to nepotism when assigning posts, but Judges only on merit.

Hierarchies and other constraints are useful in politics to ensure that decisions are reached quickly. The Netherlands, which has dozens of small parties and a very level playing field between all of the parties. Had multiple elections within a short time frame and was unable to choose a PM in their last (or penultimate) election.