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Whose opinion do you trust most?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2026
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Based on archeological evidence, humans lived in horizontal egalitarian societies for most of our existence. It's only relatively recently that we have deviated from that norm and began to live under hierarchical, unequal societies.
More recent history has demonstrated that we can quite easily return to a non-hierarchical society, and quite successfully.
This seems to prove that we are just as wired for no leaders as we are for leaders, and we can choose which path we want to take. Currently, it appears that the leader path virtually always leads to corruption, control, and capitalist fascism, which is ultimately incompatible with a habitable planet/biosphere, so uh... I think we should take the other path, maybe.
Weren't elders/shamans/gurus looked up to as sort of spiritual and worldly advisor/authority figures back then? Granted, it's not the same as being a chief/leader, but they talked, and their community listened and generally followed their advice.
As you say, a collective of people asking an elder for advice and collectively making a decision on it is quite different from being ordered by a leader and forced to follow it.
Experts in specific fields are still looked to for advice and help in a egalitarian society, there just isn't a rigid hierarchical structure that makes them have more institutional power than anyone else. As an example, in revolutionary Spain, there was still a need for doctors, electricians, train operators, farmers, etc, but they no longer had a boss they had to listen to, they were able to self-organize whatever they thought would meet the needs of their society best, and those not skilled in those areas deferred to their knowledge and experience for situations that fell under it.
This was documented quite thoroughly in Sam Dolgoff's book from 1974, The Anarchist Collectives Workers’ Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939, along with Gaston Leval's 1975 Collectives in the Spanish revolution, if you'd like to investigate the specifics.