As a group grows, the information and coordination load rises faster than the membership, forcing either hierarchy or fission.
Johnson's archaeological argument was that societies confronted with rising scalar stress resolve it in one of two ways: they add a layer of decision-making that reduces the number of parties who must reach agreement, or they split. The prediction is that hierarchy appears at particular size thresholds, and the archaeological record shows organisational change clustering there.
In practice
- A team that could decide anything in a corridor at eight needs a weekly meeting at eighteen and a manager at thirty.
- A committee that grows past about a dozen either acquires a chair with real power or splits into working groups.