The concept of hierarchy comes in many forms. Some of those forms are not necessarily materially efficacious; they are only used to organize things or prioritize things. Here this short discussion has to do with the general form of hierarchy which involves a material efficaciousness, in which an organized power concentrates more power in itself by marshaling the organized power of other entities in relation to it, so as to diminish those other entities in proportion to its own augmentation.
In general hierarchy necessarily implies a relationship between concentrations of organized power, such as human beings or other forms of life. In this simple relationship, one organized power places itself in a position of heightened importance over another in a field of shared resources, within which emerges an asymmetrical flow of resources to the power that is positioned to receive them.
So to give a brief example, a patriarchal household implies a hierarchy in which the patriarch rests as organized power at the top of a pyramid of other organized powers such as wives, children, etc. The patriarch is socially permitted to concentrate resources and control them for the rest of the associated powers.
What is common to all organized powers in this field is the shared desire of shared resources, and so the asymmetrical flow of resources necessarily creates an antagonism between other powers. Other associated powers, to compensate for their lack of resources - and the head power's concomitant abundance of resources - attempt to concentrate power in their direction so as to divert resources, or else they attack the hierarchy or head powers themselves.
Without any further action, this is an unstable situation. The head power, and the rest of the associated powers, are to take turns concentrating power and diverting more resources to themselves, with power oscillating and proceeding towards crisis, as those oscillations tend to gain momentum.
So hierarchy creates instability through its operation, and so it must situate itself. Like one sets out tripod legs to settle a wobbling camera, the top of the pyramid, with its current abundance of power, marshals that power to situate itself and stabilize itself. The other powers, coming up against these stabilizing forces, are further antagonized, as this tends to take power away from them, even as these forces act as an alien influence within their own sphere of control.
So hierarchy, coming up against this antagonism as it situates itself, must situate itself deeper and deeper, producing ever more antagonism. Where there is power available at the top of the hierarchy to further deepen itself against this antagonism, and weaken the antagonists, this power is diverted toward this end, until there is no longer enough power available to do so.
Therefore, this form of hierarchy is necessarily terminal. The stability it produces is illusory and temporary, which is all the more convincing the longer the timescale. But when the hierarchical system can no longer maintain itself, it rapidly and explosively collapses, much like unpayable compound debt.
