I won't retread what QinShiHuangsSchlong already said very well, I want to expand by saying I don't find it compelling at all when someone uses the "read theory" argument. Essentially, it says "I can't argue with you well, so I recommend you look into those who can." Demeaning someone and then giving them homework is a horrible way to get them to do so!

One of the best ways to comprehend theory is to try to simplify it for others, and be capable of clearly expressing your points without relying on "quote-mining" or "phrasemongering."

This isn't an argument against theory, but in favor of more effective discussion, as I was once extremely guilty of dumping recommendations for Marxist theory without properly explaining it, causing the argument to slide off like water on a windowpane. It also assumes a lack of competence on the other party's part, which can quickly backfire if it indeed turns out that they know what they are talking about (such as QinShiHuangsSchlong here).

I’ve read anarchist theory, from Bakunin to Kropotkin to Stirner and beyond. My disagreement is not because I have failed to encounter “theory”; it is because I find anarchist theory weak, abstract, and far less applicable to actual social transformation than the Marxist tradition of scientific socialism.

And no, it was not a straw man. The claim made was not “some hierarchies are oppressive” or “illegitimate authority should be abolished.” The claim was that hierarchy is inherently oppressive. That is a much stronger and much worse claim.

If hierarchy as such is inherently oppressive, then the relation of parent and child, doctor and nurse, teacher and student, engineer and apprentice, safety inspector and worker, commander and soldier, party and masses, all become oppressive by definition. That is obviously false. These are not all the same social relation. Their content depends on material conditions, class character, function, ownership, accountability, and historical role.

What you are doing by saying “epistemic authority ≠ oppressive hierarchy” is the same semantic retreat anarchists have hid behind for generations. The moment useful, necessary, or socially productive hierarchy appears, you rename it “epistemic authority,” “coordination,” “expertise,” “delegation,” or some other softer term, then pretend it is no longer hierarchy. But changing the label does not change the social relation. As Engels put it: “These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves.”

A useful analysis does not ask whether “hierarchy” exists in the abstract. It asks: what kind of authority, serving which class, under what mode of production, with what relation to property, discipline, expertise, coercion, and social necessity?

A capitalist boss commanding workers for private profit is not the same thing as a surgeon directing an operating room, a revolutionary army maintaining discipline, or a workers’ state organizing production and defense. Treating all hierarchy as inherently oppressive collapses real material distinctions into moralistic abstraction.

That is in my view the core weakness of anarchism: it mistakes the abolition of domination for the abolition of hierarchy (and thus authority) as such. The aim should be to abolish class rule, exploitation, and the material basis of oppression. Not to pretend complex society can function without organization, discipline, expertise, or authority. The question thus is not whether authority and as such hierarchy exists. It is which class controls it, for what purpose, and under what social relations.