General Will, Egalitarianism, Means of Communication

The structure of Plato's ideal Polis is determined by the principle 'each according to their abilities'.  Hence, it is not necessarily the case that a non-exploitative political system is not hierarchical, nor that the resolution of hierarchical antagonisms, e. g. Class Conflict, is Democratic.  More generally, the example illustrates that there is nothing inherently Egalitarian about a General Will or a Common Good.  So, Dialectical Materialism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient ground for the emergence of Socialism, nor is either Rousseau's concept of a General Will, or the French Revolution. adequate as an inspiration for it.  Indeed, technological development is, as Marx-Engels posit, a significant factor in the rise of their system, but not as it informs the Means of Production.  Rather, the clear precedent of the Egalitarianism of the entire era is the transition from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism that pervades Europe, a transformation effected by one event--Gutenberg's invention.  So, Socialist revolution can be interpreted as one of a series of consequences of a change in the predominant Means of Communication in Europe, another of which is the preceding emergence of the concept of a General Will.