Just a topic to chat about.
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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what you are describing is the tyranny of structurelessness
and you are correct. structure is impossible to escape. but general hierarchy is not. I'm defining that as a structure in which one party has general powers to control another party, like police.
the opposite would be specific hierarchy - a structure in which a party has power over other parties only in prescribed circumstances, like a bouncer deciding when a person must leave a bar. within the structure of our society, that bouncer can't leave the bar and start forcing people into or out of other locations. a cop more or less can do that.
therefore, it's not a given that a "nonhierarchical" society is one of implicit structure. the most successful "nonhierarchical" society would be explicitly structured and would have robust checks and balances through specific hierarchies.
for example, a subject matter expert should probably have preferential influence on decisions within their subject over non-experts. certain amounts of violence may always be necessary, so perhaps certain resources need guards. those guards would not be deciding policy, but they would be administering a pre-designed system of resource access, with the power to enforce that system if someone is trying to hoard that resource. (I'm not certain force will always be necessary, but it's perfectly believable.)
the best structures would discourage power accumulation with distributed responsibilities and self-improving systems ("laws" that prescribe their own revisions, theoretically with certain provisions that prevent regression toward allowing power accumulating behavior). these structures are not impossible, they're just difficult to design and they are typically hated by power-seeking parties.
Most people I’ve met who oppose hierarchy oppose both general and specific hierarchies. What you’re suggesting sounds like a method for cutting down on human dickishness with good institutional design, not an abandonment of hierarchy.
I probably don't fit in with very many anarchist groups, and I don't fit in with very many hierarchical groups either. I don't believe a total abandonment of hierarchy is a worthwhile goal; in fact it seems pointless to me as an end in itself. if one's end goal is the empowerment of individuals to influence their own lives and their communities, removal of hierarchy is a tool to do so. focusing on the total eradication of hierarchy is a distraction because it's not the actual desired outcome.
I am sure some would argue that it's necessary to totally eliminate even specific hierarchies in order to achieve personal empowerment, but I don't think so. personal empowerment isn't about being able to take any specific action you want, just like we all agree murder is almost never an acceptible exercise of freedom. similarly, I don't think personal empowerment means letting random people access and interfere with important research projects, but rather the ability for them to study and to become a researcher.