I’ve often thought that seniority/credential based hierarchies are stable and prevalent both because they benefit those already in power, and they provide a defined, predictable path for low status members to become high status. One is more motivated to contribute and support a system that guarantees them high status after X years if they are of middling competence, rather than a system that requires them to be among the best at some quantifiable metric. The longer someone spends in a company, the more invested they become in their relative position in the company rather than the company’s absolute success, and if the company has gotten “too big to fail”, it’s much more predictably personally beneficial to prioritize personal relative status since the company will do well either way.
I’ve often thought that seniority/credential based hierarchies are stable and prevalent both because they benefit those already in power, and they provide a defined, predictable path for low status members to become high status. One is more motivated to contribute and support a system that guarantees them high status after X years if they are of middling competence, rather than a system that requires them to be among the best at some quantifiable metric. The longer someone spends in a company, the more invested they become in their relative position in the company rather than the company’s absolute success, and if the company has gotten “too big to fail”, it’s much more predictably personally beneficial to prioritize personal relative status since the company will do well either way.