"Rhizome" is one such term. It's opposed to the model of "the tree" which symbolizes hierarchical structures, extreme stratification, and linear thinking.


Arborescent systems are hierarchical systems with centers of significance and subjectification, central automata like organized memories. In corresponding models, an element only receives information from a higher unit, and only receives a subjective affection along preestablished paths. (16)
Deleuze and Guattari also cite an essay by Pierre Rosenstiehl and Jean Petitot who denounce arborescent models:


Accepting the primacy of hierarchical structures amounts to giving arborescent structures privileged status ... In a hierarchical system, an individual has only one active neighbor, his or her hierarchical superior. ... The channels of transmission are preestablished: the arborescent system preexists the individual, who is integrated into it at an allotted place. (16)
The result of the tree model, in its various cultural and social manifestations, is a heavily restricted economy, a structure of power and dominance.


Thus the authors speak of dictatorship theorems. Such is the principle of root-trees, or their outcome: the radicle solution, the structure of Power. (17)