In state organized stratified societies, they boast a complex system of classes, classified in minorities, in majorities, in hierarchical groups (cross cut by natural gender biological hierarchies) not medically or drug induced genders.  Emic Versions of stratified hierarchies differ from one class to another, and bear little resemblance to etic accounts. James West in 1945 studied class relations in a small Western community he called Plainville, and concluded there were different class hierarchies, depending on whether one took the view point of the upper – crust. good religious people, non church people, Methodists, Baptists, and so on. At the bottom of all these hierarchies there was a category called, “people who live like animals.”

Lloyd Warner (1949) attempted to study the class structure of Yankee City (pseudonym for Newburyport Massachusetts by classifying people according to occupation , source of income, house type, and dwelling area. Warner’s picture of Yankee City’s classes represents a mixture of emic and etic criteria. There is no doubt that stratified societies like classifying, the highly stratified societies and cultures. In terms of incomes, the poorest 10 percent of the 1 % of the aggregate family income while the wealthiest 10% account for 33%; the poorest 20% account for 4.7% of aggregate family income, while the wealthiest 20% account for 43% (Morehouse and Dembo 1985a; 11,19, 1985b; 1988.

There is upper class…..1.44%

There is lower upper class…………………..     1.56%

There is upper middle-class…………………..  10. 22%

There is lower middle class……………………  28.12%

There is upper lower ……………………………. 32.60%

There is lower lower class……………………….26.22%

Unknown………………………………………………0.84%

Is there a ruling class in these stratified Societies?

The existence of a ruling class is the Stratified societies seem to be negated by the ability of the people as a whole to vote politically as power holders in or out of office by secret ballot. Only half of the voters actually vote in elections suggesting that the majority of citizens distrust the candidates promises and doubt that one candidate can do anything to make a life difference, or can do anything more than any other to make life significantly better (Hadley 1978, Ladd 1978). The actual selecting of political candidates and the financing and conduct of election campaigns are controlled through special interest groups and political action committees. It works on small coalitions of powerful individuals working through lobbying, law firms, legislatures, court systems,  executives and Administrative Agencies and the mass media do decisively influence the course of elections and the National affairs. The great bulk of decision making processes consists of responses to pressures exerted by social interest groups. Drew 1983, Thomas 1986, Sabato 1989. In the candidate for congress, the candidate who spends the most money is the one who usually wins.

Those who deny that there is a ruling class argue that power is dispersed among many different contending blocs, lobbies, associations, clubs, industries, regions, age groups, legislatures, courts and Unions, and that no coalition is powerful enough to dominate all the other forms. (Dahl 1981). In the terminology of the economist John Kenneth Galbraith (1967) there is no ruling class, there is only “counter-wailing” power. Is there a category of people who share a set of underlying interests in the populations of the status quo and who by virtue of their extreme wealth are able to set limits to the kind  of laws and executive policies that are enacted and followed out? The evidence of the existence of such a group or category of people consists of the studies extent of interlocking memberships or corporate boards of directors and the concentration of ownership and wealth in giant corporations and well to do families. This kind of data alone cannot prove the existence of a ruling class and there remains the problems of how boards of directors and wealthy families actually influence decisions on critical matters such as the rate of inflation, unemployment, National Health Services, Energy policies, tax structures, resource depletion, pollution, military spending, and urban blight. There is potential for real such influences that are being exerted. (2024 Hogarth)

Potential of real estate

Potential of held stocks

Potential of taxable bonds

Potential of non taxable bonds

Potential of business assets

Potential of liquid assets

Members of the ruling class…(a) H. Ross Perot (b) Donald J. Trump (c) David Rockefeller. “Cultural Anthropology 3rd Edition….page 369.”

Questions of Classism………………….Do you think money rules? courts, politics, boards, unions…just to ask a few?  Carolyn d Hogarth. Canada.