Arthur Noll
Instead of arguing the virtues of the systems that have been tried, lets try looking at relationships on a very basic level. To have a relationship at the most basic level, you have two people. Or even two organisms, the principles here will still apply. Now, if you have two people who have a relationship, either one person is going to tell the other what to do all of the time, a fixed hierarchy, or they are going to take turns telling each other what to do, let’s call that partnership
Why should one person tell another what to do on any specific issue? It is a question of mastery, isn’t it? If one person can see better than the other, then in questions of sight, the one who sees better is logically master. Suppose you needed to follow a twisting trail through a swamp at night, would you put the person with the worst night vision in the lead? I think most groups would quickly figure that out. Of course, a problem arises in demonstrating mastery over some issues, and short term versus long-term thinking. But putting such questions aside for the moment, with a fixed hierarchy, you would seem to have one person who is master of all the matters that come up. Given the way talents are distributed among people, it is extremely rare that one person has mastery over everything, and should be in charge for every situation. If mastery is the criteria for decision making, then partnership, which is shifting mastery to various people in the group according to the situation, makes a lot more sense. Fewer mistakes and wasted energy will be had with such a system.
In the short term, fixed hierarchies can be kept in place with force, but compared to partnership, it is inherently inefficient. It always will cost a relationship more energy to force behavior, than if the behavior is voluntary. This is quite fundamental, so lets repeat it. It will always cost a relationship more energy to force behavior, than if the behavior is voluntary.
Obviously, to be efficient, partnership needs to be much more than simply taking turns at telling each other what to do. To be efficient, it should be predicated on shifting mastery. One person is master of this, the other person is master of that. Fair and honest competition tells who is master of what. If the competition isn’t honest, efficiency will suffer badly. The competition is going to cost some energy, but once things are settled, people can get into a routine that is very efficient. There are good lines of communication. The resentment of mastery overruled by force for the short term, often heedlessly causing pain, doesn’t have to be overcome. There is no fear of revolt, of strikes, there is no need of an armed force to either deal with these things or prevent them from forming. Partners quickly come to agreement on courses of action, act in unison, effectively deal with problems. The leaders of fixed hierarchies are always watching their backs to make sure someone doesn’t try to replace them.
It is probably fair to say that most of the existing societies of the world are actually combinations of these two patterns, of fixed hierarchy and partnership, but fixed hierarchy is usually the dominant pattern. A dictatorship is obviously a fixed hierarchy, but perhaps surprising, it is also found in the supposedly democratic capitalistic societies as well. With capitalism, for example, people with the most money are in charge, to a very large extent. Whether they have mastery of intellectual issues doesn’t matter. As long as they have the money, they are in charge. Sometimes the money is made by intellectual mastery, sometimes not. It may have been inherited, with nothing to indicate the fitness to have such power. If there is intellectual mastery it is often specialized, there is little coordination with other social players. Sometimes partnerships are formed, sometimes not. It is quite a mess, and often extremely wasteful. It has problems from other angles as well, we can look at that next.
To sum up, in a relationship, there are masters and servants. It can be fixed or it can shift back and forth. But if the master of any given situation abuses the power, asking too much or too little, the relationship is weakened. And yet we are interdependent, and need strong relationships, in order to deal effectively with problems.