"...self-serving, self-perpetuating oligarchies"

[bandwraith at aol.com]

MB:

  "it does seem reasonable that in a system viewed as a system,
  certain functions become habitual to certain members

  hierarchy doesn't seem to be much use, though, in a good system:
  are the kidneys more important than the bowels?"

I think "hierarchy" has gotten a bad rap, but your distinction
between "system" and "viewed as a system" is insightful. In
one sense, hierarchies are the inevitable result of the symmetry
breaking at the dawn of time. Ultimately, the broken symmetry
between knowing and being- symbol and symbollized- becomes
the issue. It is slightly ironic that you have chosen the kidneys
and the bowels to hold up as equally important systems within
the hierarchy of the body. For many species these organ systems
perform the dual function of excretion and marking territory.
The demarcation of boundaries marks the beginning of life-
between the animate and the inanimate- and, eventually, of
consciousness- between the meaningful and the meaningless.

If nothing else, these acts of demarcation represented the
origin of something new. At the very least, they indicated a
temporal hierarchy, before which, everything was equally
unimportant.

  "More important is the ability to work, together harmoniously,
  to share resources -- isn't it?  If one kidney cell monopolized all
  the adrenaline, it wouldn't thereby be aggrandizing itself, au
  contraire, it would be interfering with good co-operation."

The kidney cell is part of a joyous alliance- one for all and all for
one! But it, and the cells of the bowel, and indeed, all the body's
cells are derived from one progenitor cell, the pleuri-potential
zygote. They share the same genetic code- perfect harmony.
But there is, sometimes, cancer- a rebellion against the constraint
of harmony- an atonal dash for freedom from the hegemony of
the whole, with its programmed death and well mannered
oblivion.

  "But is this sub-systemic co-operation necessarily "subservient"
  to some "superior" class entity - such as the organism, the
  society, the ecosystem - or does it (one might opine) actually
  underlie and create them, and in some sense, then, itself exert
  superiority? although as good co-operators they are not really
  into that superiour-inferiour duality...so maybe, say, they find
  it more fruitful to make themsevles indispensible by not
  proclaiming their own hegemony...instead by performing
  useful tasks"

The duality seems to enter in with the emergence of
individuality and the competition for scarce resources.
It reaches another scale with the emergence of sexuality
and the competition for a mate. Group cooperation then
becomes a complex matter. I think hierarchies based on
division of labor and individual talents are inevitable and not
necessarily bad, if there is fairness. Whether or not oligarchies
are inevitable- I'm not sure.