The Non-hierarchical Organizational Model

Traditional community structures are hierarchical, and the trouble with hierarchies is that they have "gatekeepers" like the position circled in yellow in the organizational model below.   (Click on image for full-screen, high-resolution image.) Frederick Thayer, in "An end to hierarchy! An end to Competition!" (1973) described the  importance of decision-making through small consensus-building groups of 5 to 6 individuals.  The organizational model below has the same 18 individuals in similar "groupings" to the  model above, but it is completely "horizontal" in structure.  The person in the middle is just one member of a "linking group" made up of  six individuals in  a fourth "consensus-building" group.    (Click on image for full-screen, high-resolution image.) By avoiding a hierarchy at the local "face-to-face" community level, it opens the possibility of  "stacking" these community organizations into a global "virtual network" of similarly situated groups.  In the model below, the "needs-based" cities across various states in the United States are now able to work across state lines, all but ignoring any barriers that state governments try to impose upon some of the more progressive cities in ultra-conservative states.   (Click on image for full-screen, high-resolution image.)