This type of domination usually involves a humiliatingly harsh and unconditional kind of subordination. For, inasmuch as a man is subordinate by virtue of belonging to a thing, he himself psychologically sinks to the category of mere thing. With the necessary reservations, one could say that where law regulates domination, the superordinate belongs in the sphere of objectivity; while, where a thing regulates it, the subordinate does.

DEFINE: Distinguishes two modes of domination: law-regulated (superordinate occupies objectivity) vs. thing-regulated (subordinate becomes object).

Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simm…, loc. 6410