We're in general agreement here, although Catalhoyuk had 10,000 inhabitants, with all buildings being the same general size, no evidence of temples or government buildings, etc. And as noted in the Autonomy piece, there is evidence from many ancient cultures of very large groupings with no formal hierarchy or central leadership. So, yes, larger cultures have a more difficult time staving off dominance based hierarchies, but there are ample examples of rather large cities who managed to do it - mostly with local councils that hashed out the needs of those in their particular constituency. And often, to get on that council, you had to demonstrate that you had no designs on power. There were often rigorous vetting processes of fasting and deprivation to prove that the candidate truly wanted to serve the community — not wield power over it.
In general, ancient and modern egalitarianism does not believe that everyone is the same or has the same skills or qualities. It just acknowledges that all skill sets are valuable and that no-one should be permanently ranked (or worse yet ranked through heredity) because of those abilities or skills. Ad hoc leaders arise to deal with particular situations, but they retain no permanent power. A group of 50 or 150 can all vote on the decisions that affect the group, and that's harder to do with more people than that, but that's why you had neighborhood councils in larger cities.
As this relates to modern workplaces, it does not mean that everyone gets a say in every decision. It speaks more to how power is wielded (power over vs. power to and power with).
"Another type of hierarchy is one of actualization. This is an organizational structure where the leaders not only expect support and respect from those whom they have authority over, but they also give it back reciprocally. Organizational goals get achieved through collaboration and relatedness, rather than paternalism or threats.
A leader in this type of hierarchy is someone who recognizes people’s potential and develops it in alignment with the greater goals of the organization. Special ops groups such as the Navy Seals use this type of hierarchy because it is much more agile than a more paternalistic style in which every move has to be approved from above."
I used to work for a non-profit that was organized this way. I was a team leader, but that meant that I was essentially the point person amongst the practitioners - not someone who sat on high "managing" the work of the others on my team. We solved things through collaboration and by leaning on the strong relationships and trust that we had developed with each other. It worked beautifully - until a bunch of corporate types infiltrated the board and started demanding more traditional dominance hierarchies. I left soon after.
The key point that you've noted is "no enforcement ability." Dominance hierarchies are enforced through coercion, violence, and the threat of violence - not by collaborating, negotiating, and relying on the strength of interpersonal relationships. They not only allow but encourage social stratification that is maintained by keeping other people with less power "in their place" - racism being just one example of many of this.
One can reasonably argue that we would have never had "civilization" as we now know it if dominance-based hierarchies had not emerged, but then again, we can also debate whether that was truly a good thing or not. Mostly, it's a mixed bag - but that doesn't mean that we couldn't at least acknowledge the upside of valuing someone for their potential to contribute to a situation rather than on whether or not they fit the profile of who ought to be a good contributor based on some artificial metric like gender or skin color. History is rife with examples of Black and female scientists and inventors who were poo-pooed, or who were never credited for their work because the dominant culture could not envision that "someone like them" had anything to offer.
That's a huge miss in my book, to say nothing of the fact that the rebel in me hates the idea of stupid, corrupt, or lazy people stealing from those who are smart, and industrious just because they have more social power. In fact, the entire idea of social power based on immutable traits offends me to the core - perhaps because I've been (and still sometimes am) on the negative receiving end of that, and I don't like when it happens to anyone else either.
So, if we're so much in agreement, why have been wrangling around a lot of this stuff for literally years??? Inquiring minds want to know....
