Corporations are tiny governments. The traditional top-down command and control structure models are representing extreme authoritarian mini states, where cops and overseers (aka managers) have unrestricted power and are picked from the top, instead of having leaders democratically elected by the civilians. They can't be replaced at the next election if they do a shitty job, as there is no election - just selection. They are not representing the workers’ interests but solely serving the non-producing nobility (aka executives) and their own self interest.
Corporations are almost purely authoritarian virtual states which are employing at least 110 million servants in the US alone. Once you sign up, you basically give up your constitutional rights (freedom of speech, even freedom of thought). Everything you do will be measured, supervised, quantified, scheduled. You give up your right to allocate or own your own time, you will willingly live in a surveillance state below cameras and with spy software installed on your equipment, and regardless of your performance you will get compensation defined not by your accomplishments but by simply the market rate of the level of your servitude.
The problem with hierarchy is that once it’s established, it tends to reinforce itself. As it grows, the established members will add new members only if the newcomers’ are obedient and their behavior won’t present the slightest risk for the established members’ current positions. Regardless of their actual performance, talent or skills, if a subordinate is not pleasing their superior, they will be cut off. Hence natural degradation and inefficiency is inherently encoded in the rigid hierarchical structures by design.
I feel that the enormous network of these virtual corporate command and control mini corporate states basically hijacked this country which is based on strong democratic values. Most people who are employed by any corporations these days are unaware of the fact that he is not living in a democracy anymore as he signs his employment contract.
Personally when I was looking for work, for me the single most important factor was always the culture; what is the organizational structure? Am I joining to a more democratic model (flat structure) or a dictatorship (traditional rank culture and hierarchy) ?
Unfortunately, since we're still living in a post-industrial society, almost all corporations are still based on the traditional military-style command and control structure (ranks/classes, top-down hierarchy, obedience and supervision valued over skills and productivity, information silos, no transparency), while flat structures are almost unheard or even considered outright utopian.
But it doesn't means they don’t exist; once you know what are you looking for, you will find it. See Valve, Holacracy, Buffer, GitHub, TreeHouse, Zappos, etc.
I believe the future of work will be flat, democratic, diversified and distributed. The command and control structure is a slowly and painfully dying dinosaur, which will end up in irrelevance in the coming decades in the same way as the Internet killed the once ubiquitous television and the gated music industry.
