I. The business class (hucksters and profiteers), a self-seeking, aggressive group of adventurers, promoters and organizers of bourgeois society to whom profit comes first.  At one or another stage in the life cycle of every civilization aggressive bourgeois greed for wealth and power makes itself felt.  Their role in western civilization has been outstanding.  The business class through its control of the productive apparatus and the sources of credit has been able to surround itself with subordinates, scientists and other experts, apologists, strong-arm squads (police and military), spies and assassins.

   II.  A middle class, made up of business class subordinates
   plus self employed tradesmen, professionals, independent
   farmers and craftsmen.

III.  A class of blue collared and white collared producers of goods and services who hold their jobs during good behavior.  When not needed or wanted they are pushed into the ranks of the partially or wholly unemployed.  Most civilizations have added to the working force serfs, peons and/or chattel slaves.

IV.  A class of hangers on—­economic parasites—­who consume more than they produce.  The payment of unearned income to property holders and the creation of monopolies enables this class to live on rent, interest and profit in proportion to their ownership.  As parasitism increases and multiplies it proves to be a dead weight which eventually drags down any economy that tolerates it.

   V. A class of dependents, defectives and delinquents, supported
   by society but contributing little or nothing to
   its maintenance or its advancement.

Every civilization has maintained a greater or lesser degree of mobility between the classes.  Mobility makes it possible for those with greater ability and energy to leave the countryside, settle near the market-place and climb the ladder of success.  It has also made it possible for policy makers to dump those whose services are no longer needed or wanted by the ruling oligarchy.

Among the driving economic forces in a civilization are hunger, fear, greed, ambition.  In practice these forces have proved far more effective than whips and clubs in the hand of slave drivers.  They animate the rat-race for pelf, power, “success”, which attracts idealism, energy, ability and throws out the carcases of those no longer able to make a contribution to the wealth and power of the oligarchy and its establishment.

Hunters, herdsmen, cultivators, craftsmen, mariners, miners perform services that maintain the solvency of any economy in which they play a leading role.  Fast talkers, adventurers, promoters, manipulators, gamblers add little or nothing to the income of the communities in which they operate.  Often, however, as gargantuan consumers, they play an important role in building up the deficits which finally wreck an economy.