[KeestRast]

It might be said there is nothing wrong with hierarchy per se, it exists everywhere. It is present in nearly all institutions even throughout the Buddhist faith. In private industry, education, the military etc., etc. in every instance it seems ridiculous to question there being any other way for things to be, why question it in society.
Hierarchy in the broader context of the social sphere only becomes problematic when A) It is critiqued from the fundamentally Western Liberal perspective. B) That such an hierarchical society results in such vast inequalities that the lowest echelons only enjoy a life that could at best be described as ‘surviving’, and (C When the ruling Class, those with effective power and influence, such as the government or the leaders of commercial enterprise negate their responsibility toward the vast majority of people who elevated them to these positions in the first place.
(Please note that B) & C0) are also derived from within Western liberalism.
But all three statements could be made of most Western democracies.
Everywhere else hierarchy and just as importantly the ‘qualification of competency’ to hold that position go almost unquestioned. This is mainly why we go to dentists to fix our teeth and mechanics to fix our cars and not the other way around. This is why PhD’s lecture at universities and farmers grow rice. The paradoxical nature of Asian hierarchy in the social sphere is that PhD’s are usually credited with a certain degree (no pun intended) of social standing, yet farmers have little or no social respect. Yet when it comes to a perspective of whose function is the most important, the PhD’s may well have trouble eating without the farmers, yet the farmers will have no trouble continuing their lifestyle without higher education.
In the U.K. academics are referred to less and less and popular culture (created where?) rules supreme.
In Plato’s ‘Republic’ the ruling class were philosophers, the only direction and subject was the benefit of the people. Although this is also contradictory to liberal idealism it is not any worse than most democratically elected governments. Bodies of elected individual’s who may be representatives of the people but are highly unlikely to be representative of the electorate.
It would seem that most Asian countries have made the same glaring error as the West in elevating acquisition of wealth as the indication of ‘success’ in life. This is not helped much by the (I believe) misinterpreted perspective of karma now reinforcing and bonding ‘successful’ & status. Having a pile of money may indicate one’s shrewdness in business dealings or prudence in dealing with money generally, maybe and more negatively, as a result one’s openness to corruptibility. These would not seem the ideal ‘qualifications’ for leadership in society, where one is only concerned with one’s own status and that status is defined in the most part either financially or by military rank.
The only criticism that can be made of social hierarchy is from a liberal perspective (anarchy being the most extreme form of liberalism). All left wing thought stems from a perspective that aims a more egalitarian state as its prime objective an would see the state ‘wither away’. But there would still be government at a ‘local’ level and no doubt this would indicate some form of ‘unequal’ social standing.
Curiously the liberal perspective that eschews hierarchical societies also teaches us to respect culturally different societies (but only if they are not too different!).
It is a sad fact that if you value your life you call the man with the gun ‘sir’. If liberalism had it way we could all carry guns…… Let’s not go there.
Hierarchy isn’t wrong if the qualifying virtues were less materially based.
Democracy may seem good on paper but look at what the West has done with it and consumerism in a couple of centuries! Democracy gave arguably the most powerful nation on earth a president that half of the population did not want. This is the same process that then took a vast chunk of that term of office to reflect public opinion again through the ballot box.
If not Hierarchy, should we then opt for a system that is even less tolerant of criticism (ever tried criticising democracy in a democratic country?) but one that should accept it and adapt to the will of the people rather than create institutions that creates moralities and legislation that ‘govern’ our behaviour. Is this not where the drive for social harmony as the greatest good in Thailand stems from, the belief systems of the ruling elite?