Mona: An ad hominem argument is not the sign of someone capable of critical thinking. And you're wrong, anyway.
+TSRA: Of course there's a chain of command. And the number of times I've had to assert it in my time as a captain is about twice - both times addressing behaviour of crew whilst off the aeroplane. People pretty much universally know what they are supposed to do (it's laid down in the ops manuals!) and get on with it. The ops manuals is the framework under which the chain of command is defined, and this derives from other statutory documents. It will define the scope of command authority and responsibility, along with everything else. The captain does not have unlimited authority, "chain of command" notwithstanding. Evidently I disagree about the scope of that authority with most of the rest of the commenters on this thread.