> Don't you think it's a bit of an analogical stretch to say
> that the workers at Boeing and
> Airbus have guns held to their heads?
>
> Ian
Quite.
I don't disagree that present society has far too much coercion and hierarchy.
That said, yes I do think that hierarchy of some kind will always be needed to carry out tasks of any size or complexity. Does hierarchy rest simply and solely on coercion? I don't like the word "coercion" in this context because it seems too simplistic, even if one is only talking about present society.
Reducing it all to a simple matter of coercion, as it were, at gunpoint, as though we were all simply being herded into the mines and galleys, ignores the complexity of modern society.
At a minimum, some people just *are* more experienced, knowledgeable, capable,or what have you, than others, and so *ought* to direct the work of other people. Is it, for example, intolerable coercion, in some ultimate sense "at gunpoint," if a senior scientist, let's say, assigns her grad students to do a lot of boring scut work in the lab?
More to say, but I am at work and my boss is reaching for her .36, so I've gotta go.
Jacob Conrad