Authority is a tricky word. It can mean someone who has power-over others, or someone who knows more about a subject than others. I encourage the second, and react very poorly to the first.

The other issue here is the types of power that authority can wield: coercion and restraint. Coercive authority makes people do things that they wouldn't do otherwise. Restrictive authority makes people not do things they would do otherwise. I can imagine legitimate uses of both, but coercive power is harder to justify for me.

For an example of a society without coercive authority, or much authority at all, see And Then There Were None by Eric Russell.

I live and work in a very small community of two people.  There is no "authority."  We don't always agree, sometimes we even yell at each other.  But eventually we work out our differences by talking (and hugging).

I'm not convinced authority is necessary in a group.  I may be wrong. 

Hey, Ben.

 When it comes to power, I like to refer to the very practical nuts-and-bolts definitions provided by Dickerson and Flanagan in "An Introduction ot Government and Politcs: A Conceptual Approach".

Power is simply the ability to make someone do something that you want them to or something that they wouldn't otherwise do.

Power consists of three things

• Influence
• Coercion
• Authority

A civilisation requires public authority, be it traditional, legal or charismatic, because those in command of the hierarchy need to be able to issue orders that will be obeyed by everyone; in other words, universally recognised as legitimate. For instance, no one shall murder, or no one shall steal, or pay your taxes, or all 18-year-olds report for military service. Command of the hierarhcy can only be maintained if the people that make up the hierarchy legitimise the authority of the person in office to have a monopoly on decision making and order issuing.

But all human societies deal with natural authority. People follow the master hunter's suggestions because he is "an authority" in hunting. Therefore people default to his judgement. People default to the elder because she is "an authority" in a given field. It is quite easy to obtain legitimacy for this level of authority. "This person knows what they're doing so they have the right to tell me what to do."

But in what I would assume to be a tribal or cooperative future, public authority would be much harder to maintain.

Hereditary leadership, or traditional authority, is less likely. Also, hereditary position is simply a way of keeping the office of power within a family. There are no offices of power in cooperative groups; thus, no need for hereditary authority.

Legal authority depends of laws. Laws are a method of controling a hierarchy. No hierarchy, no need for codified laws. No codified laws, no legal authority.

 Charismatic authority is possible. God could speak through the chief. But really, it has to do with theocracy and men on national missions like Hitler. It has little use in cooperative groups.

So while natural authority will persist, all forms of public authority, really, native to and only required by hierarchy, will be eliminated.

HOWEVER, it is not inconvievable that cooperative groups will live within the larger context of a civilisation. For instance, Dancing Rabbit is a small cooperative and sustainable group that lives within the larger context of the United States of America. They still recognise the legitimacy of American authority in many instances; particularly the American government's legal authority. 

Natural authority is an inextrudable part of human society. Political authority is not. While it isn't unthinkable that some small cooperative groups may adopt forms of political authority, it is less than likely because political authority is NOT REQUIRED. That alone increases the likelyhood that only natural authority will remain.

Like the Chief says in "The Emerald Forest":"If I told a man to do what he does not want to do, then I would no longer be chief."

Buckle up

In small cooperative groups, interpersonal relationships are used as the primary method if maintaining social harmony and bonds between the membership. Once groups passed the Dunbar Limit, it was no longer an effective option. Hierarchy was adopted and centralised social norms were used as a method of introducing ideas into the populace that provided social links where none really existed. Thus 1.5 billion people consider themselves a part of the same social group, the Chinese, becuase they identify with the language, traditions and cultural norms said to be possessed by Chinese people.

The norms must be controlled centrally becauase they CAN'T be controlled by consensus. There is not, nor will there ever be, a method of communication that allows millions to billions of people to have an effective conversation. That is unless we suddenly adopt the Borg collective consciousness. This is why the Pope and the Pope alone can set Catholic policy. If you don't like it, tough. He has the charismatic authority. Legitimise it or piss off.

But in small cooperative groups, the group identity is not cafefully regulated by a central power because there is no central power.  The group bond is regulated by daily interpersonal interaction. Thus, that societies culture is the sum total of those interactions; meaning, that it is determined collectively based upon the individual preferences of all memebrs. In cooperative groups, social norms are a negotiated compromise rather than an enforced dictat. Furthermore, everyone knows everyone. If one person is really negatively impacted by a practice or belief, it's difficult to hide the fact. If you have a problem with it, speak up. There are channels for you to be heard. 

This is not to say that interpersonal relationships do not get strained in cooperative groups, but that because interpersonal relationships are the entire basis of the group dynamic, problems must be dealt with swiftly in order to maintain function. This is why most cooperative groups use restorative justice. They seek to RESTORE HARMONY to the whole after a transgression by doing what it takes to "make things right". Since the entire point of the group is to ensure everyone's survival, the stakes generally force everyone to fix whatever problem they face. The alternative is the dissolution of the group.

It is in hierarchical groups that interpersonal relationships are allowed to sicken because they are an unncessesary part of daily life and often, a hindrance in climbing the ladder.

That being said, I think Jensen pointed out that we have a general fear of interpersonal relationship. It is a faculty that, because of it's redundancy, is retarded in Our culture. Interpersonal relationships are not free and maintaining them is a skill. For that reason, things might be strained in nacent cooperative groups. But all skills can be learned, or re-learned in this case.

As Quinn points out in... Ishmael I think... in groups with Oral traditions, what is of value in the here and now is transmitted to the next generation while what no longer works, for whatever reason, is discarded.

In civilisational groups, not only are there hard and fast traditions, they must be the objective truth, meaning all other truths are necessarily wrong and to top it all off, they're recorded, meaning that a thousand years down the line, people will follow traditions that have been obsolete for centuries.  

 All of that is to say that social norms in cooperative groups are a result of everyone's input and therefore don't need to be "enforced"; whereas, in hierachical groups, in order to maintain social order, everyone has to follow the same code, the same rules and therefore, these rules must be enforced and deviation from them swiftly punished.

Not surprisingly, living in a society that bases its cohesion on interpersonal relationships means that everyone has to work at keeping those relationships healthy. It's almost like, they're expected to be adults or something :D 

 Peace and Love and Empathy,

 Matt

I am not an anthropologist, but I believe that most tribes have a chief or a tribal counsel or tribal elders who would be considered authority figures.  Tribalism is not anarchy.