As Trip said: ``Solid post.''

Not that I have an answer to your challenge, but maybe a thought. We cannot destroy hiearchy, but perhaps we don't need to. Sure it is cool to be top dog, but more than status we are wired for *belonging*, status is just an amped up version of that. The welfare state focuses on the material needs of all.

But I was impressed by a mormon friend of mine who told me that their church will struggle to find a job for people that is supports via material charity. They wanted those people to have the sense of worth coming from this.

I dream of some funded system that somehow creates groups whose job is to attend to each other. I don't know how this would work, but it seems there is lost opportunity:

-- an able bodies man without the emotional/mental strength for a conventional job.

-- an clear eyed elderly that who no longer has physical strength and mobility

-- an empathic person with variety of challenges and lack of skills.

Each of these could not hold a job today, but could they form little groups, then into bigger hierarchies, and serve their own members?

It seems this could give more than bread to each, instead a group that is yours...