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by throwaway93982 1531 days ago
Yep, hierarchy comes from religion (hierarkhia, "rule of a high preist"). Traditional capitalist hierarchical organization is just one of many potential hierarchies, so definitely it could be improved. But hierarchy is ingrained in culture, and culture is probably the third hardest thing in the universe to change, after genetics and cancelling your gym membership.
2 comments

It seems to me that hierarchy is ingrained in nature, and human nature is an extension of that. There will always be a hierarchy in any system of living (and therefore competing) organisms.

It seems more productive to focus on making sure the difference between the top and bottom doesn't get too extreme, rather than lamenting the fact of nature and wishing there was no such thing as competition.

The nature didn't for the most part had software nor networks, and thus couldn't fully explore and utilize the alternative approach of self organization from the bottom up with closed loop feedback to achieve desired emergent properties/product/etc. There are good chances that many known human hierarchies are going the way of dinosaurs.
Exactly lot of middle management functions can be automated and even more objective evaluation can be done.
Does this scale?
If you are talking about hierarchy copying the Catholic Church, well the church also copied the Roman government, that appeared mostly naturally from the existence of an imperium.