Do you have any evidence to back up that claim? I've never heard of any study that showed that cooperatives are less productive than hierarchies.
replyEven co-ops have hierarchy-style management, which is often professional management. It's just done on behalf of the collective membership instead of answering to a corporate board. (But the oversight is often weak in any such scenario, so the professionals involved can accrue significant benefits.)
replyThe benefits of coordinated cooperation are called “civilization”.
replyWhile meritocracy in high dimensional humans is a muddy thing, as being capable, and being capable at what is actually needed often diverge.
But at the organization level, the benefits of strong coordination of the right things are clear. Virtually every business study, studies this. Virtually every political leadership study, studies this.
Cooperation has so many efficiency and effectiveness benefits. Institutionalizing the right kinds of cooperation, i.e. coordinating it, even more so.
This is the civilization superpower.
This is why billions of people can spend their days doing other things than food production, and can live in places with no food production in sight.