Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In modern Western societies, social stratification is typically defined in terms of three distinct social classes: the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class. [ 2 ] Some synonyms for "elite" might be "upper-class" or " aristocratic ", indicating that the individual in question has a relatively large degree of control over a society ...
In philosophy, political science and sociology, elite theory is a theory of the state that seeks to describe and explain power relations in society.In its contemporary form in the 21st century, elite theory posits that (1) power in larger societies, especially nation-states, is concentrated at the top in relatively small elites; (2) power "flows predominantly in a top-down direction from ...
Unlike the ruling class, a social formation based on heritage and social ties, the power elite is characterized by the organizational structures through which its wealth is acquired. According to Mills, the power elite rose from "the managerial reorganization of the propertied classes into the more or less unified stratum of the corporate rich ...
In sociology and in political science, the term "the establishment" describes the dominant social group, the elite who control a polity, an organization, or an institution. In the praxis of wealth and power , the Establishment usually is a self-selecting, closed elite entrenched within specific institutions — hence, a relatively small social ...
Nowadays, however, with the waning of the WASP elite as a social and political force, the register's role as an arbiter of who counts and who doesn't is almost an anachronism. In Manhattan, where charity galas are at the center of the social season, the organizing committees are studded with luminaries from publishing, Hollywood and Wall Street ...
Term Description Examples Autocracy: Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power (social and political) is concentrated in the hands of one person or polity, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d'état or mass insurrection).
The existence of a class system dates back to times of Ancient Egypt, where the position of elite was also characterized by literacy. [9] The wealthier people were at the top in the social order and common people and slaves being at the bottom. [10] However, the class was not rigid; a man of humble origins could ascend to a high post. [11]: 38–
Ton society was intensely class-conscious and the social hierarchy was rigid.. Members of the ton came from the aristocracy (nobility) and royalty. Though some wealthier members of the middle classes could marry into the lower ranks of the gentry, such unions were not completely accepted by the elite ton.