ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the upper class is said to have extensive influence over the economy through stock ownership, and then turn to the question of economic power through extensive representation in major corporate offices. Aside from actual stock ownership there is another possible means of upper-class leverage over the economy. The next questions of importance for ruling-class or governing-class theorists are the degree and means of political power exercised by the upper class. Especially in an age when political campaigns are won more through presenting images than issues, the image-creating mass media are extremely important and costly. Many writers in sociology, political science, and economics have come to stress the increased importance of information and ideas generated through research in guiding the economy and government in advanced or postindustrial societies. Each class or economic interest group tends to have a world view or way of perceiving reality that has been shaped by its own economic and political interests.
