>One of the reasons humans developed formal hierarchies is to minimize the influence of these informal power structures.
This is a bizarre assertion. Humans developed formal hierarchies because people with swords thought they were an efficient way to steal surplus wheat from peasants. The fact that after millennia of living under hierarchies, people don't have good skills for living without them doesn't mean we chose those hierarchies in the first place.
"Doing so allows an organization to set consistent patterns that can vastly increase efficiency over more arbitrary and capricious systems."
You've simply stated what I stated while claiming to disagree with it, while using a perfect example of why it's true.
What you miss at the end is that humans will always organize into hierarchies. Informal hierarchies are something built into us as a species, and instinct to organize our social groups. But brains often beat instinct, and our ability to use our brains to build more efficient social structures than our ad-hoc instinctual ones has demonstrated to be better over the long run.
The reality of the human condition is that many people want to be "under" someone. Having complete freedom is both time consuming and exhausting. We already spend an inordinate amount of time making choices, it's nice to have many of them already made for us (or at least having our selection limited).
Yes, you're right, this is why people are always saying things like, "I love my boss," "I really like other people telling me what to do all the time," and "I'd really hate to be able to work for myself."
I did no such thing; you just totally missed my point. People did not adopt hierarchies; they were pushed on them by violence. People fucking abhor hierarchies. That's why "the boss" is a universally despised figure.
This is a bizarre assertion. Humans developed formal hierarchies because people with swords thought they were an efficient way to steal surplus wheat from peasants. The fact that after millennia of living under hierarchies, people don't have good skills for living without them doesn't mean we chose those hierarchies in the first place.