The second possibility is (tentative) good news for freedom. It says that hierarchy is inefficient.
Too much hierarchy is inefficient, as it combines wasted talent with the need for a cumbersome apparatus of repression. That is a fact that can coincide with too little hierarchy being inefficient. It is probably one those Laffer curve-like things, where the sweet spot is at a hard-to-identify point in the middle. Liberal democracies are freer than socialist states or empires , but probably less free then the small anarchist societies David Graeber admires.
Too much hierarchy is inefficient, as it combines wasted talent with the need for a cumbersome apparatus of repression. That is a fact that can coincide with too little hierarchy being inefficient. It is probably one those Laffer curve-like things, where the sweet spot is at a hard-to-identify point in the middle. Liberal democracies are freer than socialist states or empires , but probably less free then the small anarchist societies David Graeber admires.