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You can have democratic decision-making, which isn't hierarchical and yet is explicit about the distribution of power. So while it's true that holacracies can

by js8 7y ago

You can have democratic decision-making, which isn't hierarchical and yet is explicit about the distribution of power. So while it's true that holacracies can quickly turn into hierarchies rather than democracies, it's still doesn't explain why hierarchies are preferred by humans over democracies, while the latter is obviously more acceptable on the state level.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> So while it's true that holacracies can quickly turn into hierarchies rather than democracies, it's still doesn't explain why hierarchies are preferred by humans over democracies, while the latter is obviously more acceptable on the state level. Democracy on the state level mostly refers to bureaucratic heirarchy where the leaders are (sometimes indirectly) accountable to the electorate; heirarchy and democracy coexist rather than being mutually exclusive. Heirarchy dominates state-level organization with or without democracy, just like it does virtually all other human enterprises. Democracy, on the state level, seems to be more reliant on formal reservation and delineation of powers and well-institutionalized means of enforcing those formalities than non-democratic heirarchy, which is perhaps why holacracy becomes informal non-democratic heirarchy rather than something democratic.
- js8 7y ago
  > heirarchy and democracy coexist rather than being mutually exclusive Exactly, that is my point, in the army they are exclusive though. The people lower in the hierarchy have little say in whether they trust the people upper in the hierarchy. > Heirarchy dominates state-level organization with or without democracy, just like it does virtually all other human enterprises. That is true, but that's my point also. Why does it dominate, if we know from our (rather limited) experience with democracy that at least on the state level, it leads to better outcomes?
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > That is true, but that's my point also. Why does it dominate, if we know from our (rather limited) experience with democracy that at least on the state level, it leads to better outcomes? We have almost no experience with non-heirarchical democratic state-level organization. We have experience with heirarchy with democratic accountability and heirarchy without it, and from that we can conclude that: (1) the former may lead to better outcomes for those that aren't at the top of heirarchy, but (2) the former definitely relies on formal delineation of authority and institutionalized structures enforcing those formal rules. (That is, democratic control at the state level requires formal heirarchy.) Holacracy eschews formal structures of authority, and therefore the (informal) heirarchies it produces are not restrained by democratic accountability. And even very small-scale democracy (which may not require formalization) still has heirarchy; people (social animals generally, people aren't special in this regard) form heirarchies.
    - js8 7y ago
      I think your analysis lacks distinction that not all hierarchies structurally are hierarchies of power. For example, in Linux Kernel development, there is a hierarchy with Linus on top, but the hierarchy has very little actual power over other developers. Anybody can fork a Linux kernel. So even when there is a hierarchy, the power doesn't have to be concentrated in it. In fact, I consider democracy to be explicitly against power hierarchies. (In this sense, it is very leftist concept.) From my perspective, the whole problem with holacracy is the lack of rules that guarantee the distribution of power, unlike in democracy, where this is guaranteed by agreement of participants with the decision-making method (i.e. votes of all people are equal). Finally, you still state that hierarchy is a natural phenomenon, but that still doesn't explain why people insist on it even culturally. Just like the fact that humans evolved on African savannah doesn't mean that they would like to continue do so. But humans are surprisingly insistent on hierarchies of power even in the face of f-ups mentioned in the article.
  - rmah 7y ago
    The US experimented with democratic military structures during the early days of the Civil War (and perhaps before) at the regiment and company levels. Some volunteer regiments elected their officers. This did not turn out well and the practice was abandoned.
    - js8 7y ago
      That's certainly a worthy endeavor but I don't believe you can build democracy from the bottom (by embedding it in the larger hierarchical structure), it has to start from the top. At the bottom, it will not be taken seriously.

by js8 7y ago

dragonwriter 7y ago

> So while it's true that holacracies can quickly turn into hierarchies rather than democracies, it's still doesn't explain why hierarchies are preferred by humans over democracies, while the latter is obviously more acceptable on the state level. Democracy on the state level mostly refers to bureaucratic heirarchy where the leaders are (sometimes indirectly) accountable to the electorate; heirarchy and democracy coexist rather than being mutually exclusive. Heirarchy dominates state-level organization with or without democracy, just like it does virtually all other human enterprises. Democracy, on the state level, seems to be more reliant on formal reservation and delineation of powers and well-institutionalized means of enforcing those formalities than non-democratic heirarchy, which is perhaps why holacracy becomes informal non-democratic heirarchy rather than something democratic.

js8 7y ago
> heirarchy and democracy coexist rather than being mutually exclusive Exactly, that is my point, in the army they are exclusive though. The people lower in the hierarchy have little say in whether they trust the people upper in the hierarchy. > Heirarchy dominates state-level organization with or without democracy, just like it does virtually all other human enterprises. That is true, but that's my point also. Why does it dominate, if we know from our (rather limited) experience with democracy that at least on the state level, it leads to better outcomes?
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > That is true, but that's my point also. Why does it dominate, if we know from our (rather limited) experience with democracy that at least on the state level, it leads to better outcomes? We have almost no experience with non-heirarchical democratic state-level organization. We have experience with heirarchy with democratic accountability and heirarchy without it, and from that we can conclude that: (1) the former may lead to better outcomes for those that aren't at the top of heirarchy, but (2) the former definitely relies on formal delineation of authority and institutionalized structures enforcing those formal rules. (That is, democratic control at the state level requires formal heirarchy.) Holacracy eschews formal structures of authority, and therefore the (informal) heirarchies it produces are not restrained by democratic accountability. And even very small-scale democracy (which may not require formalization) still has heirarchy; people (social animals generally, people aren't special in this regard) form heirarchies.
  - js8 7y ago
    I think your analysis lacks distinction that not all hierarchies structurally are hierarchies of power. For example, in Linux Kernel development, there is a hierarchy with Linus on top, but the hierarchy has very little actual power over other developers. Anybody can fork a Linux kernel. So even when there is a hierarchy, the power doesn't have to be concentrated in it. In fact, I consider democracy to be explicitly against power hierarchies. (In this sense, it is very leftist concept.) From my perspective, the whole problem with holacracy is the lack of rules that guarantee the distribution of power, unlike in democracy, where this is guaranteed by agreement of participants with the decision-making method (i.e. votes of all people are equal). Finally, you still state that hierarchy is a natural phenomenon, but that still doesn't explain why people insist on it even culturally. Just like the fact that humans evolved on African savannah doesn't mean that they would like to continue do so. But humans are surprisingly insistent on hierarchies of power even in the face of f-ups mentioned in the article.
- rmah 7y ago
  The US experimented with democratic military structures during the early days of the Civil War (and perhaps before) at the regiment and company levels. Some volunteer regiments elected their officers. This did not turn out well and the practice was abandoned.
  - js8 7y ago
    That's certainly a worthy endeavor but I don't believe you can build democracy from the bottom (by embedding it in the larger hierarchical structure), it has to start from the top. At the bottom, it will not be taken seriously.