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oooo comments on Why officers vs. enlisted? - Less Wrong
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I believe the main distinction was primarily historical when nobles and aristocracy commanded peasants. I had always thought that commissions (from the Queen/King or head of state) used to be put on sale by the state, similar to how France at one point used to sell public offices.
In today's more modern times, one can become an officer by dint of having a post-secondary education. At least in Canada, you are typically an officer when you enlist provided you have a bachelor degree and pass certain intelligence tests.
Everybody else (NCOs or enlisted) typically become technical SMEs due to lack of upward mobility.
Doctors are SMEs, but they also have extensive post-secondary education. Average grunts and NCOs don't start out as SMEs, but given enough time (provided they survived) become an expert would have made perfect sense.
Even more recently, I think it was that enlisted men hardly made any decisions at all. Isn't the modern idea of the moderately agenty enlisted man a result of post-WWI squad-based mobile combat?
Yes, technically the exact difference between officers and non-officers is that officers receive a commission by the sovereign. That's a formalism and does not explain why there is a two-ladder system.