The thing is, tree structures are very good ways to scale interconnected systems. Ask any computer scientist or computer networker about it.
This applies to societal systems as well. A bronze age society that has a feudal structure can manage a much larger area than a flat society. Armies can be coordinated that would be an ineffective mob otherwise.
That doesn’t make hierarchies nice for the people living in them, any more than the industrial revolution was actually nice for the people living through it. But they are an enabling technology, and societies that did not have hierarchy were eventually overwhelmed until almost every living human is living that way.
For sure it’s more effective with entreched heirarchies, bit i think it’s possible to use that organisational structure without it metastisizing into a perminant heirarchy. Anarchist federations do this, sortition is useful, turn-taking etc.
societies that did not have hierarchy
I don’t believe such a thing ever existed. Other mammals display heirarchies so it was probably present in a distant ancestor, predating humans and our societies.
It’s the nature, duration and intensity of heirarchy that has changed so remarkably in the last 15k odd years.
The thing is, tree structures are very good ways to scale interconnected systems. Ask any computer scientist or computer networker about it.
This applies to societal systems as well. A bronze age society that has a feudal structure can manage a much larger area than a flat society. Armies can be coordinated that would be an ineffective mob otherwise.
That doesn’t make hierarchies nice for the people living in them, any more than the industrial revolution was actually nice for the people living through it. But they are an enabling technology, and societies that did not have hierarchy were eventually overwhelmed until almost every living human is living that way.
For sure it’s more effective with entreched heirarchies, bit i think it’s possible to use that organisational structure without it metastisizing into a perminant heirarchy. Anarchist federations do this, sortition is useful, turn-taking etc.
I don’t believe such a thing ever existed. Other mammals display heirarchies so it was probably present in a distant ancestor, predating humans and our societies.
It’s the nature, duration and intensity of heirarchy that has changed so remarkably in the last 15k odd years.