[csydas]

> The power in heirarchies, is not the title, but the relationships between 'brothers' inside it.

I would disagree to an extent -- for those in the brotherhood, yes it's about the relationships; for the rest, it's about the title(s). The hierarchy exists as an exclusionary barrier ensuring those outside it respect the hierarchy, while those inside play with the hierarchy of the brotherhood.

From my experiences across many businesses, this is an accurate representation of hierarchy and titles; they are a tool of force against those without the title, except for those who are close with someone else within the hierarchy who is willing to forgo the hierarchy and mission/purpose of the org. It's wildly inconsistent, prone to errors and really bad decision making, and it's quite hard to unravel for virtually anyone who wants another way of doing things.

[barrysteve]

Businesses and corporations need a heirarchy to withhold knowledge and information from outsiders and 'insiders hungry enough to be dangerous'.

But the natural state for a heirarchy is in an institution, or a military, or a government.

As soon as you make money, your final measure of existence, heirarchy is crippled (to varying degrees) as a concept.

Heirarchy in a business is nearly identical as keeping people 'on a shelf' ready to be deployed onto the storm and stress of work. Businesses heirarchies are flatter, often chaotic and lose rigour and discipline, anytime someone sees financial benefit in bending the rules.

A pure heirachy like something seen on a british navy frigate, or in a religious instution, is a better mental model for the concept. Business needs, flatten out what the ideal concept is capable of producing.

[csydas]

i get what you’re saying, but i don’t see those as true hierarchies either. they suffer the same issues and problems as described above.

the simple idea of implicit authority because of rank or position does not seem to work as soon as there is an incentive to misuse it; i don’t know what the answer is to this but i don’t really subscribe that the majority of the hierarchies matter so much.

the open source model of “just fork it if you don’t agree” isn’t great, but i would say it’s a start. maintainers define the goal and purpose of the project, but if you don’t like the rules, fork and go your separate ways. this is vastly simplified of course, but i think it better represents a model that would be reasonable for a hierarchy.