Jerry Monaco wrote:
>
>
> But though this equality is not pretty it
> still exists. This does not mean that there is a lack of hierarchy.
> There can be enforced equality of distribution of goods such as food
> and still be hierarchical relations in other areas. Studies of
> various primates have shown, hierarchy and enforced equality can
> coexist. This is certainly true of bonobos but also of a few monkey
> species.
There are additional confusions to the ones you describe in use of the term "hierarchy." In a 'traditional' (pre-capitalist) hierarchy often in principle and even more frequently in practice each 'place' in the hierarchy would possess independent power of its own. Contrast, for example, the ways in which armies are raised today (through direct conscription of individuals by the central power) with the raising of troops in (say) 14th c. England. The Monarch could only request (however much force lay behind such requests) that his barons each raise troops within their own domains to serve in a campaign. No Wars of the Roses could occur in a modern state, since there is a direct rather than indirect relationship between the "sovereign" and the individual citizen or subject. And the process of separating a Duke from his domains was rather messier than the process of removing a corporate vice-president from his particular responsibilities.
"Hierarchy" in short is an almost meaningless concept in the abstract. It takes on meaning only within specific historical conditions.
Carrol