Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/423

 and technically the organization of the group is elaborated, the more objectively and formally will the schemes of superordination and subordination present themselves. Then, as a supplementary matter, the proper persons are selected for these relationships, or they are filled out by the mere accidents of birth and other chances. In this connection we are by no means to think merely of the hierarchy of civil positions. Financial economy creates within the spheres of its control a wholly similar formation of society. Possession or lack of a determined sum of money signifies a determined social station almost entirely independent of the personal qualities of the individual concerned. This is thrown out into bold relief by the fact that money is a possession not in any necessary connection with personality, but possible to everyone who may earn or inherit it. People traverse the positions corresponding with possession of determined sums of money, just as purely fortuitous substances find their way through rigidly fixed forms. To whatever extent socialism may condemn this blind accidental relation between the objective gradation of positions and the qualifications of persons, its proposals for organization end with the same sociological formation. This is evident when we consider that socialism demands an absolutely centralized, that is of necessity a firmly articulated and hierarchical constitution and administration. It, however, assumes a priori the equal fitness of all individuals to occupy any position in this hierarchy whatsoever. According to the ideal of consistent socialism, in the state of the future the same person who today performs the most menial work may tomorrow turn the scale upon the most weighty political questions. Herewith has the formal demand for superordination and subordination become completely master over the subjective qualities from which the demand has its source.

This analysis brings us to a sociological perception of the very highest significance: that superordination and subordination are a formal structural (organisatorische) necessity for the continuance of the group. In comparison with this necessity, what persons shall be the superiors or inferiors is a secondary question. As a