The division of labor is NOT hierarchy. Hierarchy is a system of organization and classification in which people or things are arbitrarily ranked according to authority and status. The etymological meaning of the word hierarchy is "the rulers here" or "sacred rulers".
By contrast, the division of labor is when tasks are assigned to individuals who voluntarily agree to perform them in exchange for compensation. This assignment of tasks allows groups of individuals to accomplish much more than they would have been able to accomplish alone, thereby making each individual more productive and efficient, which makes the output of each individual more valuable. When individuals choose to sacrifice leisure for the purpose of performing labor, they do so because it is more preferable to them than their perceived alternatives.
What most people don't realize is that the division of labor also applies to roles like management, investment, speculation and entrepreneurship. Each of these roles requires a unique skill set and involves an increased level of risk that individuals providing unskilled labor never have to personally assume. Each of these roles also involves the sacrifice of increasingly greater amounts of leisure time and presently available capital.
All other things being equal, people in ANY role are paid based on the value they provide, which is determined by the consumers of the goods or services produced and the available supply of other individuals who are willing and capable of performing the task in question. The division of labor is NOT arbitrary, and it's NOT hierarchy. The division of labor is when individuals voluntarily work together to increase their own prosperity and the prosperity of their customers.
To conflate the division of labor with hierarchy is therefore not entirely unlike conflating charity with theft or consensual sex with rape.
