It is questionable whether a socialist order could eventually do without such a priori super-subordination. Socialism postulates that any accidental chance be eliminated from the determination of positions to be occupied, and that individual qualification alone decide the attainment of positions. On the other hand, it also postulates that any talent develop "freely," that is, that it find the position commensurate with it. From this and from what has been pointed out before, it follows that in socialism there would be more superordinates than subordinates, more persons who command than execute commands.

QUESTION: Is this a defensible deduction or a contrarian provocation? The counting logic seems worth interrogating — it hinges on how one defines 'talent development' and position-matching.

Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simm…, loc. 2820