As you say, a collective of people asking an elder for advice and collectively making a decision on it is quite different from being ordered by a leader and forced to follow it.
Experts in specific fields are still looked to for advice and help in a egalitarian society, there just isn’t a rigid hierarchical structure that makes them have more institutional power than anyone else. As an example, in revolutionary Spain, there was still a need for doctors, electricians, train operators, farmers, etc, but they no longer had a boss they had to listen to, they were able to self-organize whatever they thought would meet the needs of their society best, and those not skilled in those areas deferred to their knowledge and experience for situations that fell under it.
As you say, a collective of people asking an elder for advice and collectively making a decision on it is quite different from being ordered by a leader and forced to follow it.
Experts in specific fields are still looked to for advice and help in a egalitarian society, there just isn’t a rigid hierarchical structure that makes them have more institutional power than anyone else. As an example, in revolutionary Spain, there was still a need for doctors, electricians, train operators, farmers, etc, but they no longer had a boss they had to listen to, they were able to self-organize whatever they thought would meet the needs of their society best, and those not skilled in those areas deferred to their knowledge and experience for situations that fell under it.
This was documented quite thoroughly in Sam Dolgoff’s book from 1974, The Anarchist Collectives Workers’ Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939, along with Gaston Leval’s 1975 Collectives in the Spanish revolution, if you’d like to investigate the specifics.