I'm noticing lots of people with both the opinion "I don't think I could work under a boss" and "hierarchies are efficient". But there's a tension between these two.

Efficiency properly understood isn't output per man-hour, it's output per unit unpleasantness. That follows from standard econ definitions of efficiency.

imho, the ideal is the currency of organization. it isn't so much that we aren't cognizant of some compromise or deferral to some arbiter, but that there isn't some "unpleasantness floor" depleting the value/fulfillment of contribution. hierarchies often ossify into unpleasantness creep.