Worth reading "The Tyranny of Structurelessness". It's from the 70s and is specifically about the women's movement, but is applicable to these kinds of discussions.

Whenever you have a flat hierarchy, informal structures will arise in place of explicit ones.

http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

"A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can be so easily established because the idea of "structurelessness" does not prevent the formation of informal structures, only formal ones."