We have to keep thinking about better ways to do things. 
Hierarchy: some people really are smarter and better at organization than others (and they'll want to be paid for it ) so we're going to have hierarchies.
People just have this 'King of the Hill' gene. 
'...we'd have to divide up the grunge work equitably and democratically'.
We'd all have to agree on definitions of grunge, equity and democracy first.  Not everyone goes along with the dictionary dictum.

I don't think I'm being a pessimist.  I think I'm just looking at human nature.
We shouldn't ever stop looking and trying and doing in our own circles of influence.  Someday we may actually come up with something.
Libertarianism is a great theory; Utopia would be heaven and maybe someday these things will come to pass so let's not forget about them.  They should be waiting in the wings if humans ever take that leap of consciousness you hear about.

Plugging along and trying to do no harm as Kenan does post post  seems kind of uninspired but slow and steady may be the best course to take and it is the best we can do most of the time.

We shouldn't give up the hope and the search.  We shouldn't give up the discussion. The answer lies somewhere between heaven and hell--Utopia and Totalitarianism-- and that's what we've got right now.  That thing in the middle...
But I'm keeping my eyes open anyway.

...if we don't think about better ways to structure our world, we have no hope of improving. And should the abolition of hierarchy be a central principle in our utopian visions? --Paula

Interesting and topical question. For my part, I very much agree with the first sentence just quoted. I'm less comfortable with the second because I feel it is conflating some things.

I agree with Linda that "we're going to have hierarchies." If there's a heart surgery ward I want the best and most experienced doctor to have more authority and higher rank than the interns. If there's a 500 person bicycle race to coordinate I want a uniformed police force telling the motorists they can't pass until the peleton goes through. I don't want my airplane flown by committee. I don't want first-year college students to be proportionally represented when then university community elects a president. 

I think part of living together in a community means trusting other people to make decisions for us. That's a certain submission. That's hierarchy. What it most importantly does not mean is that any one hierarchy correlates with human worth.
We don't have a monarch who is on the top by any possible standard. There's a give and take. We are in an (apparently) very complicated world and most of us specialize.
We don't need to think that any particular ranking, in any given context, reflects anything other than skill set and fitness for the job.
We have to do a lot of soul searching as a society to make sure that we don't have blinders on when we judge "fitness for the job." There are massive failures in that respect. 

If we (=society) felt in a deep way that each member of the community had inherent personal worth I'm not sure we would care so much about the spectre of hierarchy, because it would not be abused as it is constantly now by people looking for validation. It might stop being such a source of unhappiness and simply be useful: various members of the community step forward, volunteering their expertise and gifts, and take upon themselves for a time the significant burden and responsibility of making sure some specific area of life is run as well and as smoothly as possible. But they would not be able to do this without the agreement of others, which involves a certain delegation of authority.

Gotta get my word in for a better way of doing things.
 
Paula has voiced the concerns of many and Linda touched on the vision of a few - that of libertarianism as a political structure that attempts to meet Paula's concerns, in part at least, from a political, social and juristic perspective. 
 
Libertarianism is not about the annihilation of government.  It argues that if all mankind (or let's just say, all Americans) were equally empowered, there would be no need for government to regulate interpersonal affairs, as it does with myriad legislation and regulation, but that every American could responsibly and effectively control their relationship with every other American.  Hence the idea that there is no need for government.  However, every thinking Libertarian understands that there is a need for an authority to determine such issues as 'on which side of the road must vehicles travel' and that the only way that can be achieved is through a national assembly that decides these issues. 
  
What the modern libertarian is concerned about, however, is the limitation of the power and responsibility of a national assembly and its executive to only those issues that are absolutely necessary to the functioning of a viable society.  So a Libertarian is interested in seeing a minimal government needed for that purpose, not the multi faceted behemoths that are the present Federal and State governments in power in the USA and their equivalents elsewhere in the world (libertarianism is a concern of the world, not just of the goodoleUSofA).
 
Central to the Libertarian concerns is that of individual empowerment.  A libertarian would rather see a state if sovereign citizens than a sovereign state of disenfranchised citizens. 
   
A libertarian recognises the rule of law.  He however argues that there is no need for the plethora of law and regulation that seeks to regulate our lives but that a single overriding law which states that 'Anyone can do anything they wish so long as they do no harm to the life, limb or property of another', a sort of universal law of libertarianism, would suffice in the stead of that plethora.  Think carefully about how that overriding principle would have reigned in those creative Wall Street geniuses long before the recent bloodbath, because it would have been their blood they would have been bathing in, rather than the market's blood, had they not reigned in their ambition and greed. A contract that ultimately enriched one at the expense of another, rather than as a result of quid pro quo (value given for value received) would also be a target of such a universal law.

Libertarianism recognises absolute equality between individuals.  It therefor follows that no group of individuals would be more powerful than their members, in their individual right.  This would apply equally to all bodies, private, public or social.  So Government and all its institutions would have no more power than that granted to any other single individual, nor would unions have greater power than that of any one of their members, nor would public or private corporations nor the most wealthy person in the land, have greater political power or influence than any other member of society and whatever influence they wished to apply they would have to apply through the personal power granted to individuals.  Within that context, the purchasing of public concessions through lobbying would probably be deemed to be doing harm to all those excluded or targeted by the concessions, which individuals would have the right to apply for relief under the universal libertarian law mentioned above.  Bang does lobbying as a national income leader and a lot of the perks of public office.
 
Central to equality is empowerment.  A thinking libertarian would recognise that the poor and disenfranchised are not empowered and that the achievement of that ideal of empowerment can only be reached many generations into the future, but would none the less recognise the need to uplift the disenfranchised by giving them opportunities to uplift themselves.  The rationale behind this is not altruism but enlightened self interest.  A wealthy individual in a sea of poverty will soon lose his wealth, however, a wealthy person in a sea of wealth has opportunity to increase his wealth.  Concern for the disenfranchised is ipso facto a concern of libertarianism.   So indeed, a person whose sole interest is an exaggerated self interest with no concern for the society in which he lives, is no libertarian.
 
Also pivotal to empowerment would be the equal access of all to a legitimate judicial system (who is it who determines if harm has been done and to what extent is restitution due, and how legitimate is that determination?).  

Enough said - it's all been said before anyway.  Perhaps one day it will be heard as well as said.

There are a few other threads discussing similar concerns, notably:
 
Libertarianism without the Loonies - http://www.thinqon.com/topic/libertarianism_without
and
What should we expect from a Republican congress? What should we fear? -   http://www.thinqon.com/topic/what_should_we_expect

 
Live long and prosper.