On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>> Nonhierarchical social arrangements are relatively common in human
>> societies; people just take them for granted. (e.g., peer groups,
>> many family relationships, food co-ops, my local bike repair
>> collective, most open source software projects, lots of bands,
>> just to draw a few examples from our own society.)
>
> Those are pretty small groups, and I'll bet lots of them have hidden
> hierarchies.
>
> Doug
Sure, subtle hierarchies can emerge in many social contexts (e.g., an open source software project may have a leader or facilitator). I'm just arguing that a social hierarchy is not natural and inevitable.
Even if a person wants to dominate others, if there is not a social structure in place to facilitate that domination, she won't get very far: e.g., a greedy person in a hunting and gathering society can't become rich and dominate others, because the subsistence economy makes this practically impossible.
--Social hierarchies can only emerge as part of a certain pattern of social relations; they cannot be a simple manifestation of a natural psychological tendency.
Miles