ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explains how his theory involves a synthesis of a class theory with what is often thought to be its antithesis in American sociology, an organizational theory, thereby creating what the author call a class/organizational synthesis. Formally speaking, a social class is a network of interacting and intermarrying families who see each other as equals and accord each other social respect. The existence of the network of upper-class institutions makes it possible to determine if and to what extent members of this class are involved in corporations, political parties, government, and other institutions of the society. There are not that many of them to begin with, especially when half of them have been excluded by sexism from pursuing traditional pathways to power. The corporate community is defined in network terms as all those corporations connected into one network by people who serve on two or more boards of directors.
