I think that pecking order is a poor substitute for any unhierarchical way of interacting. The best team efforts I ever had the honor of being part of, be it cr

I think that pecking order is a poor substitute for any unhierarchical way of interacting. The best team efforts I ever had the honor of being part of, be it creative projects, software projects, music bands, project groups always had a flat power distribution. Having a ruler was not necessary there. I also had good groups with hierarchies, but never because of the hierarchy, but despite it. These projects were never as fulfilling as the freeform ones, where we collectively decided who needed to do what and what needed to be done. Hierarchies can be very bad when taken too seriously, because your superior is usually not the best at understanding the problem domain at any given point in time and it is very easy to loose the motivation of your subordinates if they don't feel in control of their domain. That being said the interesting test for any system of power distribution is always scale. Small groups, communes, villages or cities are something else than countries.