"And what happens if they don't have it on the ball?"
Chessman growled, "What happens to such under any society? They get the dirty-end-of-the-stick jobs." His eyes went from Kennedy to Mayer. "Are you suggesting you offer anything better?"
Mayer said, "Already on most of Genoa it is a matter of free competition. The person with ability is able to profit from it."
Joe Chessman grunted sour amusement. "Of course, it doesn't help to be the son of a wealthy merchant or a big politician."
Plekhanov took over. "In any society the natural leaders come to the top in much the same manner as the big ones come to the top in a bin of potatoes, they just work their way up."
Jerry Kennedy finished his drink and said easily, "At least, those at the top can claim they're the biggest potatoes. Remember back in the twentieth century when Hitler and his gang announced they were the big potatoes in Germany and men of Einstein's stature fled the country—being small potatoes, I suppose."
Amschel Mayer said, "We're getting away from the point. Pray go on, my dear Leonid. You say you are forcibly uniting all Texcoco."
"We are uniting all Texcoco," Plekhanov corrected with a scowl. "Not always by force. And that is by no means our only effort. We are ferreting out the most intelligent of the assimilated peoples and educating them as rapidly as possible. We've introduced iron ..."
"And use it chiefly for weapons," Kennedy murmured.
"... Antibiotics and other medicines, a field agriculture, are rapidly building roads ..."