Hierarchy is too slow for 21st Century Business and Social Change

Organisational form is governed by contextual norms that in modern times have been categorised as systems, era's or modes of production. these are post-facto categories emerging with the bourgeois and the enlightenment. The time of ending nominal privilege and other 'perversions' such as slavery begins with this modern 'enlightened' period. As with all human history there are no straight edges to beginning one system and ending another. There are emerging tendencies that become dominant and receding tendencies that become absorbed and collaborate with the new dominant mode of organisation. Each mode or era influences the other but with dominance categorised as a 'new' mode or era.

Hierarchy therefore, is a contextualised organisational form meeting specific needs. That observation also allows us to recognise the potential for limits to its relevance and the possibility for new forms existing within the same spatial and temporal references.

We are 'hierarchicans' and we emerge from hierarchy to both end its existence and to create its replacement. We do not pursue either of these as objectives expressly, rather this is the impact of our efforts to learn and do things differently. Like all social constructs we retain the freedom to adjust and to change how we act to make new social products. As social organisations no organisation is crystallised and impermeable, it is a fluid arrangement of social relations enabling divergent actors to conjoin in complex and multiple acts of production and reproduction. Like any complex system, the social organisation, including hierarchy, has emergent properties which fuel learning and knowledge accumulation.

Thomas Kuhn elaborated how paradigms of human knowledge are historically interwined and emerge from the preceding actions and effects of earlier and current paradigms. Ilya Prigogine in his Irreversibility of Time thesis, outlines the 'dissapative structure', that structure that is possible because of the environment but would disappear without the conditions provided by the environment. Thus, the paradigm emergent dynamic, means that new emergent properties come into existence not so much 'replacing' previous paradigms, as building upon the IP created by previous paradigms, including but exclusive to, the current dominant paradigm. Prigogine is describing the effects of heat on water, but his concept is of value as a metaphor for social organisation. In keeping with Prigogine's wider thesis, human social organisation is an evolutionary act and not reversible.

Hierarchy has history

Pre- capitalism, in the despotic and monarchical systems of human social organisation, physical force was the source of power and authority. It served a social value in delivering some level of certainty and security but at a high personal price for many individuals. Enslavement of the person was core to the asset value system of human organisation. Acquiring slaves was a goal and a measure of the success of what we have called primitive systems.

Capitalism progressively ended that experience for most people. Certainty and security were delivered via regulated and hierarchical systems of organisation enabling, for some, free access to a means of living that did not involve enslavement in the personal sense. Slavery was transformed by the capitalist system into a legal and commodity based system that could also be avoided at personal level in advanced / privileged societies. Slavery continued, but as a new form of social relation, in the ‘capitalist' systems of organisation developed. This new slave form is called wage labour. Capitalism did not end slavery, it transformed it and codified it.

Following historical 'law' artefacts from ancient empire days codified rules replaced the need for force. That allowed Rome to do what others found more challenging, which was to legitimise power by building organisations of empire involving cadres of people from across the various societies they conquered. The smart way to conquer was to regulate and to integrate the conquered; physical slavery was not required. Enforced labour, wage systems and persecution remained.

Capitalism deepened that competence in the form of modern law, bureaucracy and hierarchy. All empires have sought more assets and the capitalist hierarchical organisation based around legal rules grounded in the concept of property rapidly expanded into all areas of the human occupied earth.

Empire is power via regulation not market expansion

The ancient empires took control of land and people and this in time, via the Roman empire, led us into codification of rules that allowed far away spaces and peoples to be 'managed'. This was the beginning of regulation and market based governance never really existed. Markets existed but total systems 'governed' by markets did not. Producers and traders were permitted / tolerated by military and administrative powers. Markets are what Durkheim or Tonnies or Braudel saw as 'organic' forms of social organisation. Those that emerged from the spontaneous behaviour of producers and consumers. The Roman empire was the beginning of the end of the market as a free organic social organisation.

Markets do not govern our economies from this point, a power source does. That power source is initially a military and sovereign power with notions of divines rights etc, possibly attached to notions of 'god'.

This expands via the modern era, and in particular via hierarchical organisation into, a regulated system of governance. Throughout the 20th century the modern state has been the largest actor in the economy. The market is an organic social relationship that became significant in the middle ages but has progressively been governed by hierarchy and law.

It should also be noted that universal suffrage, which also grows in the 20th century, reflects dominance by minorities in power. Advanced societies are not ruled by majorities but dominant elites and minorities. The hierarchy of 'democracy' is such that a regime can exist that is dominated by elites while appearing to be open and transparent. The UK has been politically 'governed' by a minority for 100+ years in the so called democratic era.

Globalisation in the late 20th century and into the 21st century has produced conflicts within and between states and in particular within and around international governance agencies and arrangements. Huge numbers of people do not see benefit and increasingly see disruption and impoverishment as a consequence.

Expansion has limits

Hierarchy according to Blair Fix empowers people to organise to achieve greater volumes or scale thus producing linear growth. Revenue growth or GDP growth dominate 'business' thinking in the expansionist centuries from 15th to the 20th century. The US demonstrates the power of scale and becomes the engine of the 20th century pulling most nations along through a growing globalised 'economy'.

Other organisational forms in the Soviet Union for example, attempt the same thing but do not succeed in the sustainable sense. One reason for the constraint on Soviet expansion is it lack of full blooded hierarchy. Hierarchy, enabled by law or without legal constraint, promotes elitist and individualist power sources and encourages behaviours in leadership and policy innovation. The soviet system had no energy in the form of property ownership rights. Any wage-labour was a status not a social relation of organisation related to 'economic' exchange. The state assured living conditions and it managed any hierarchical relations of power. Leaders did not exist but were appointees, 'apparatchiks'.

The 20th century certainly saw massive expansion across the globe. In particular it saw most expansion and development in US and then other 'Western societies'. This expansion is narrowly conceived and orientates around crude metrics such as GDP. As GDP expanded so did wealth inequality and poverty.

In the later 20th and in the early 21st century more and more challenges come forth countering the value and merit of linear growth of more and bigger. Today we have more challenge about the reason for linear growth and the value of growth results.

It seems hierarchy innovates linearly and this was useful in the 15th century and rose to a crescendo effect into the mid 19th century. After that expansion had a very large price and in the 20th century two World Wars threatened the basis of civilisation. The post World War 2 global space has been a hierarchical governance design to contain open war while retaining linear growth objectives.

The 'advanced' societies reached limits of small growth margins in the progression of the 20th century because their growth is based on the increased integration of other societies, 'less-advanced' societies. The hierarchy of expansion does not reward the lower ranked societies equally. The 'global cake' cannot expand enough to give everyone a large share and the 'upcoming' societies recognise the disadvantages.

Technology is not a linear concept.

It is increasingly understood that technology is required for or is even the expression of innovation. Technology is a much generalised term and so has many meanings.

Humans are the source of technology, technology 'exists' because humans 'wish' it and in fact technology is a human product. It is arguable humans are technology in a specific being form. Thus our differentiation from non-human beings is expressed in thinking and cognitive outputs transformed into physical and virtual capital. In fact we are perhaps better described as a machine culture. Speech is arguably better viewed as a technology, writing is a also therefore technology. Software we might recognise as more obviously technology, but it could not exist without thinking, speech and writing. Software follows the preceding skills and assets derived from thinking, speech and writing.

These human 'competences' are in an ecological sense technology 'coming to life' and the human is the being form that expresses it. That aligns very neatly with the arguments of transhumanists and people such as Ray Kurzweil, who would locate the human in the same evolutionary trajectory as technology within a broader earth based evolutionary dynamic.

Humans are already well versed in the language of change, and in the argument that change is apparently 'quickening' over time. It is part of 'modern' culture from mid 20th century, that generations are 'shocked' with passing time [Alvin Toffler]. Dislocation is already factored into the way society works. Schumpeter outlined the energy of 'creative destruction' that must accompany modern society. It is an already accepted fact that disruption will occur; it is the price of modern living.

However the impact is unevenly distributed and there is a theme that the lower ranks within a hierarchy and the lower ranked societies within the global hierarchy of nations suffer more or are less rewarded.

At a certain point therefore hierarchy becomes a constraint in relation to the capacity and the capability to manage change. It is in fact a constraint on innovation, linear expansion is more of the same not 'more and different'. The innovator Henry Ford was also a producer who promised any car as long as it was black. In other words the innovation of the linear orientated hierarchy is a control oriented innovation. Just like the Roman empire it is the expansion of more for the aggrandisement of the possessor.

'Technology' expands exponentially

Darwin and others explain to us that there are dynamics in the biosphere that are not understood, that they have always been happening. This suggests innovation is not 'in control' but happens within and and around the linear expansion process. It is arguable that 'technology' is a tainted label which reflects the linear culture of hierarchy.

It could be argued that 'technology' is a linear concept; and one that denies some deeper understanding. Especially it misleads us that it is an evolutionary phenomenon; a process that interacts with all and any variable, not merely those prescribed by hierarchical organisation cadres.

Thus for Kurzweil technology is the evolution of the human within and on earth, amongst other being forms. These beings are part of the networks of variables that can interact in different ways and at different times in different settings. Lynn Margolis expresses the process of change at microcosm and macrocosm layers. The human in anthropocentric fashion separates the human from these layers and being forms, and as a result 'understands' little. If we are an actor, of significance, but nonetheless within the ecosystem of all microbes, then our explanations, must locate us in that set of relationships.

In physics Einstein and in biology Margolis [amongst others] illuminate our insight that at the atomic/ microbial level there is permanent change, that only at the atomic/ microbial level can what we can call material / macrocosm level change as it is reflecting and expressing the atomic/microcosm of all changes. The macro level can enable further change as a result of synthesis and mass, but it is dependent on the energy at the atomic/microbial level.

The hierarchy of human organisation is created as an arrangement to allow myriad micro level social relationships to work. The limits are that hierarchy can only accommodate so much progress before disappointing too many actors. growth of mass works if starvation or other basic needs are relevant. If we shift to qualitative needs and aspirations related to poverty, health, education then hierarchy struggles to maintain stability and resorts to power through dominance not legitimacy.

Capitalism is progress

Adam Smith and Karl Marx express the positive value of capitalism as a mode of production as the most revolutionary and productive system the human world has seen. Schumpeter and others offer insights telling us there is movement but no plan, innovation is stimulated but not predicted. For these authors those who may be 'anti-capitalist' are questioning history and its dynamics; one cannot be anti-history, except as a dogmatist. If we are to replace hierarchy and systems of human organisation it will be derived from that history; it will emanate from that history; it will not replace that history.

If we are to oppose a system of organisation we can either explain its transitional path and enable future developments / ameliorations or we can have a simplistic view of modes of production as choices at the macrocosmic level. The latter would be an ahistorical / non-evolutionary approach; in other words a contrived and ideological approach. This was the approach of Stalin and Hitler.

Progress is not a destination but a process and akin to evolution, although carrying ideological baggage. Individual actors, humans, bees, ants, fish can have destinations but evolution does not. Destination in these local spatial and temporal senses are space time locations. Humans assign meaning to goals and destiny and this must be converted to energy contributing evolution. However the meaning itself offers nothing until it is converted into energy in exchange with other being forms, including matter. The aspect of movement is carried in the term progress. Hierarchy claims progress as crude expansionism. Today there is an appetite for quality and innovation and that requires less rigidity / control and more flexibility / freedom.

Economy is ideology

The economics of the economist is a body of knowledge that expresses ideologically the manner in which theory and policy are artefacts of the commodity system and hierarchy organisation and its mode of operation.

As such, this mode of thinking and analysis cannot as Steve Keen argues, explain capitalism successfully and therefore is not a basis for understanding in the scientific sense. Economists do not understand capitalism, they may understand capitalists and 'making money'. Keen would argue they do not understand real actors [variables, including people] but idealised actors, ceteris paribus, those who do not exist except in theoretical models.

I would argue it is not their purpose to understand, but rather to describe in a way that maintains the hierarchy of governance and policy. They act within and on behalf of and the dominance of the cadres managing and leading hierarchies, especially within 'the state'; the largest actor in modern 'economies'. Economists assist the commodity form organisation to develop and succeed.

Conclusion: Future hierarchy

Does the limitation of hierarchy mean that there is no future for it? Is there a limit to the idea of linear expansion. As hierarchy came to be historically, it will continue to be, reflecting change but also playing its role within an enhanced understanding of both evolving states of being and the destination of human organisation.

Policy / organisational success is understood in part linearly, and that concept, bigger or faster, will continue to exist. However bigger is contextualised within something richer, such as 'network' or 'ecosystem' or other to be labels, not yet born. Digital currencies for example, offer insights not simply to forms of currency or measures of value, but also forms of organisation that cannot be explained by hierarchy. The 'blockchain' is designed to avoid hierarchy. Hierarchy as a concept says digital currencies cannot come to anything; DeFI suggests decentralised asset exchanges and stock market organisations require decentralised currencies. Central banks are already offering CBDC's as alternative money systems. These currencies may come to nothing, but they will play out and create something new. They are doing so with hierarchy as a spectator.

The irony of debate about digital currency or 'crypto' is that money is already digital. the vast majority of recorded money does not exist in physical form. This aspect may be the enduring lesson and emergent property that carries forward. FAANG's have shown hierarchy how to expand without the trappings of hierarchy. FAANG's are even 'thinking' they can work without central banks; like parallel universes of commerce and social organisation. These ideas pose direct threat to the hierarchy of state and bank alike. It seems likely a more flexible regime will emerge requiring not simply new arrangements but new behaviours.

Hierarchy as a culture, cannot abide the idea of self-managing and the self managing organisation is suited to the network culture of 21st century. Hierarchies promote control via linear descent and codification. Networks promote control via modulation of the energy exchange that emerges within each discrete partner entity. Networks can allow interaction amongst non-aligned, entities, thus cultures with some but not complete alignment can exchange energy. It is viable that local hierarchies may continue but collaborate with non-hierarchical networks. It is evident that the more overtly state dominated systems of Russia and China may evolve in this way.

The earth is a machine culture energised by the cycle of the sun within our universe. Machine expresses our purpose as we have energised materials and our intellect to create the tools of machine and machine-systems to engineer our own futures as an evolving being form.

Existence is not a static form but a dynamic one, it is not linear but multi-dimensional and without limit. We appear to be the catalyst at this point [a few million years] in earths pathway, stimulating a larger energy exchange, that is the birthplace of constantly altered energy states. Hierarchy is only a form of social organisation and it is limited to specific functions.