John - I think Nick meant to distinguish between a band member who manages band business and an external person with the job description of manager.

I think of the band I play in as "my" band, because it was I who started it and recruited the players, and I who had the vision of what it should be. That vision has evolved over 20+ years (and 20+ former members), but I'm still the person booking the gigs and introducing the majority of repertoire - leaving lots of room for individual input. I suppose you could call it a benign dictatorship. I call the band Greenhouse, in part because it's meant to be a space for things to grow. But it's not a democracy (which has lots of inherent problems as a societal system and would not, I'm sure, have lasted this long as a way to perpetuate a musical group).