"Hierarchy"

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chlamor
Posts: 520
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 12:46 am

"Hierarchy"

Post by chlamor » Wed Dec 06, 2017 4:06 am

"Hierarchy" is one of those squishy, meaningless, open-ended terms favored by liberal commentators. If it is to have any meaning at all, it is defined in terms of equally squishy concepts which are also open-ended. What is "hierarchy"? Well it is a tendency towards "despotism". What is "despotism"? Well it is a thirst for "power". What the hell is a "thirst for power"? Well, that is when one "group" of people seek to "oppress" another... you know, the opposite of "freedom". In no time at all, we are off to the races - a regular DU discussion spinning into "human nature" and "democratic institutions" and, yadda, yadda "the kitchen sink" - without ever having said or understood a thing. Even when we substantially constrain "hierarchy" to make it useful, as in describing a natural order or a human one, we have no clue as to what we are really looking at beyond our description. Consider a perfect "hierarchy": a prison. There are prisoners, trustees, guards, staff, the Warden, and the DOC. Within each division, further divisions (gang members, gang leaders) and alongside the one "hierarchy", many others. If it is a private prison, there is a company hierarchy that exists both as a part of and separately from the main prison hierarchy (purchasing agents, managers, middle management, accountants, and executive management). There is a medical hierarchy which sits alongside it (aides, nurses, therapists, doctors). We have a perfect description when we are done and not a clue as to where the lines are drawn nor which ones are the important social relationships. Is the main line drawn amongst prisoners and staff? Between the prisoners themselves? Guards are clearly "under the thumb of management" but does that make them the natural allies of the prisoners?

From a political standpoint, the above is a complete circle-jerk. Marx doesn't make sense of the above. Instead, he throws it out whole.

Look at the quote and look at the footnote. Marx starts with classes as objective things, defined by their relationship to each other and in need of no further "definitions" or opinions. In each case that he lists, classes are a duality in which one group of people live by the labor of another.... slave and slaveholder, serf and lord, journeyman and guild-master. The relationship describes the form in which the labor of one "class" is appropriated by another - whether through the "ownership" of the slave or the "obligation" of the serf - but not the substance of that appropriation. There is no waxing on about "fairness" or "power" or any of the rest of that jive. That is simply not the point.

Marx is attempting to derive the motive force of class society. Why not use "hierarchy" in place of "class? Same reason you shouldn't use "hope" in place of motor oil.


- anaxarchos

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