This is an aside, but although I agree that groups without formal power structures can hide real ones, I'm not sure explicit hierarchies are necessarily better. In my experience, they can be used to legitimize shadow hierarchies or corruption, which sometimes makes the problems worse. Those vague power structures exist with or without formal ones; when they coincide it's good, but when they don't, it can perpetuate or reinforce problems more than they might otherwise.
I'm not trying to defend anything about EA, though. It's always seemed somewhat suspicious to me, and there's probably a lot of ways in which it could be used as an example of phenomena that occur more broadly in society.
> In my experience, they can be used to legitimize shadow hierarchies or corruption, which sometimes makes the problems worse.
At least in your day-to-day formal hierarchies, those who are negatively affected by the shadow hierarchy don't have anything to lose by acknowledging that it is indeed a power structure. If Alice is the boss but Bob is the one really running all the things, none of Alice's employees are going to lose any sleep by acknowledging the truth of the situation.
But in communities that claim to be non-hierarchical, coming to terms with the existence of a shadow hierarchy could constitute an existential crisis. This isn't a logical necessity-- e.g., members could simply notice and just shrug it off. But most groups I've come into contact with that claim to be non-hierarchical assign great positive value to it, and they get defensive or squirrely about any attempts to uncover hidden power structures within.
> I'm not sure explicit hierarchies are necessarily better.
It's the explicitness that is the good part, not the hierarchy. The premise is that there will always be hierarchy; groups that profess to be non-hierarchical have a hidden hierarchy that is more pernicious.
So it's not like "Oh, this group has no hierarchy, so lets invent one and write it down", it's more "This group appears to have no hierarchy; so we need to do some digging, to expose the hierarchy".
If you join a non-hierarchical group, it can take years to discover that it really does have a hierarchy, and more years to learn how it works. Hidden power is more dangerous than overt power.
I'm not trying to defend anything about EA, though. It's always seemed somewhat suspicious to me, and there's probably a lot of ways in which it could be used as an example of phenomena that occur more broadly in society.