It is
generally accepted that from the earliest development of settled
communities it was necessary for the community to be organised and
controlled by a leadership class. The concept pervades every branch
of thinking about community, not just in humans but expanded out into
nature from insect nests to wolf packs. The problem is that this is
rather more about anthropomorphising animal groups than about
reality, and is based on pattern recognition which is highly prone to
inaccuracy. If you make the effort to view the World dispassionately
and without reference to societal norms what you see is rather
different. Lets start with one of the most often used examples in
nature, the bee colony. The mainstream view of a bee colony is that
the colony is organised by the Queen who through pheromone messaging
gives orders to the rest of the colony which are carried out to the
benefit of the colony as a whole. This makes a certain sense when
looked at in a cursory fashion but fails to stand up to analysis
since it relies on the Queen having the ability to plan and develop
strategy when this is patently not the case. Even if we consider that
the Queen is merely acting in response to environmental cues this
still suggests a level of interaction which is simply not possible.
The reality is rather more prosaic. In the colony each individual
acts autonomously in the best interest of the individual. The
consequence of this is that a colony which is populated by successful
individuals is a successful colony and is more likely to expand than
one in which individuals are not successful. The interaction between
individuals operating as a collective is irrelevant.
More
of a challenge to analyse is something like a wolf pack. With higher
mammals it is less easy to dismiss the anthropomorphising on the
grounds that the capacity to plan is absent. Clearly, higher animals
are well able to establish strategies and to formulate plans, but
does this necessarily equate to the assumption that groups of animals
act collaboratively because of the actions of a leader? It may seem
likely on initial investigation, particularly when viewing the
actions of a pack of hunters, but again, all of the activity can be
explained by individuals acting in their own best interests,
successful individuals leading to a successful group, without the
need for the individual to be managed, or told what to do. The same
can be suggested for human societies. There is no fundamental need
for a leader role within human societies if we move away from the
mindset that individuality is the same as selfishness. We can move
away from this because it simply isn't true. Going back to the animal
Kingdom we see many examples of individuals operating together
without any formal structure simply because co-operative effort is
more effective for each individual than operating alone.
Despite
this we have a situation where we are consistently told that leaders
are essential. We are told that the earliest small hunter gatherer
groups were controlled by a single leader, and that as we settled
down this leader transformed over time to a concept approaching
kingship. As communities came together and expanded the role of a
leader, or king became embedded as a necessity and any other
possibility was rejected. Supposedly as societies expanded further
the complexity of those societies required an expansion of a ruling
class, advisers chosen by the ruler to act of their behalf, the
earliest politicians. From here the structure expanded and became
ever more complex until the concept of a single leader was replaced
by a ruling group, demonstrated by the general move to replace
monarchies with elected and unelected parliaments depending on
political flavour. In reality this lends further credence to the
argument that this is all a fiction, because 500 years ago the idea
that a society could operate without a monarch would have been
laughed at, yet here we are today. If we don't need monarchs, does
that allow us to question whether we need leaders at all? Of course,
that would leave us with anarchy, and we have been conditioned to
fear anarchy above all else.
